


The World Only Spins Forward

by Liminal_Space_LLC



Series: The World Only Spins Forward universe [5]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: (also I realize it's weird that it starts out kind of Dex/Chowder but it's tragically temporary), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Fluff, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Catholic!Dex, Character Development, Grief, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, I cannot lie, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Islamophobia, M/M, Muslim!Nursey, Mutual Pining, Platonic Soulmates, Queer Character, Romantic Soulmates, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, and never fear, and there's a heist!, everyone leaves this fic happier and better than they were before, hockey violence, injuries, this was largely written to give Nursey the love and characterization he so richly deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 00:45:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 55,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16629650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liminal_Space_LLC/pseuds/Liminal_Space_LLC
Summary: Dex and Nursey have been at odds for as long as they’ve been friends, but when Dex’s heartbreaking new soulmark has him turning to Nursey for advice, they will discover they have more in common than they ever realized. Together, they will help each other heal their heartache and become closer than they’ve ever been before. As their friendship grows, neither of them is prepared for newer, sweeter feelings to emerge.However, Nursey has his secrets, and nothing scares him like the possibility of having his heart broken again. That doesn’t stop him from wanting, though, and as their feelings become stronger, both Nursey and Dex find it ever harder to hide them. Meanwhile, the stakes are becoming higher as the team comes closer and closer to the Frozen Four. Can Nursey and Dex overcome their fears to realize the love they feel, or will their anxieties destroy everything they’ve worked for?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> See end notes to find content warnings and non-English vocab translations. If you're on desktop, you can also mouseover the text to see translations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my betas and advice-givers [this-amarinthine-heart](this-amarinthine-heart.tumblr.com), [airplanesandcookies](airplanesandcookies.tumblr.com), and many, many roommates and friends. You have all been incredibly kind and supportive, and this could never have happened with out you.
> 
> Also, the lovely [zimmerdouche](zimmerdouche.tumblr.com) has made beautiful illustrations for this fic, and you can find them [here](http://zimmerdouche.tumblr.com/post/180157142359/warning-spoilers-for-chapter-four-of-twosf) and [here](http://zimmerdouche.tumblr.com/post/180157143719/warning-spoilers-for-chapter-seven-of-twosf)!
> 
> I would love above all things to hear your thoughts, be they wordless screams, your deepest musings, or constructive criticisms.

Dex sees it first in the mirror of the Founders’ bathroom. It is unlike any of the other soulmarks on his arm: three black symbols drawn in strong, elegant calligraphy in some Asian language.

His heart is suddenly going a mile a minute. He has a soulmate, one who isn’t family. Someone who loves him; someone who might, just maybe, fall in love with him. Someone who Dex could take to his mother—she wants grandchildren so badly. Someone who might like his crooked nose and big ears and orange hair. Someone who might—he feels embarrassed to even think it— _adore_ him.

A moment later, though, he’s confused, searching through his mental list of friends for someone whose name this could be. How could either Meiyi Lu or Bingbing Xia be his soulmate? They’re great comp sci buddies, but they are casual friends, at best.

He ducks into a stall and pulls out his phone and starts searching his Facebook friends. He feels stupid, trying to find all the Asian names and evaluating if they might be his soulmate. Liyan Zhang is an asshole, so no; he’s only met Hinata Ito once, so probably not; Binh Vu had been a good hook up, but they hadn’t really clicked.

This is ridiculous. He shouldn’t have to mine his Facebook friends to figure out who he has on his arm. It’s his soulmate. He should know.

He should go back out. Chowder is waiting for him to help finish the problem set. Maybe he should ask Chowder? Although he’s not sure Chowder can read Chinese that well yet, and it seems kind of racist to ask, anyway.

The realization hits him so hard, his knees collapse and he lands hard on the toilet seat.

_Chris Chow._

He desperately googles “surname Chow,” and Google presents him with a symbol: 周. He compares it to the name on his arm. One of the symbols looks pretty close, though the one in his mark is obviously a lot more finely drawn. Maybe the other two mean Christopher? Is there a Chinese version of Christopher? Or maybe Chowder has more than one name. He’s definitely heard Mrs. Chow call him names other than Chris.

It has to be Chowder. There is no one else it could be. He feels constipated.

Which he shouldn’t feel. It’s stupid. He is so lucky to have a friend like Chris. And he should feel lucky to have him as a soulmate.

But the fantasies are coming back, the ones he’s been having in the back of his mind for months now. Of driving Chris to Maine in his truck and watching the sunrise over the Atlantic while Chris’s gives him that gorgeous, open smile of his. Of sitting close to him during Mario Kart, closer than is allowed. Of running his hands through Chris’s thick, shiny hair and twining their fingers together and pulling him close—

But he shouldn’t think about that. Chowder is his friend. And he is very, very straight. He literally came out as straight to the team in solidarity with Nursey coming out.

Yet Dex can’t kill the wanting in the pit of his stomach. And when he looks at the mark, his whole body is possessed with painful yearning, aching in his shoulders and ribs and spine, like the day after a hard game.

He needs to get out of here.

He rolls down his sleeves and walks out of the bathroom. Chowder, Mike, and Bingbing are still sitting at their usual table, working on their 181 homework.

“Hey Dex! We figured out problem number four!” Chowder is smiling at him so warmly, it kind of makes him want to hurl.

Bingbing cocks her head at him. “Um, Will? Are you okay? You look a little, um, pale.”

He sends up a little prayer for Bingbing. She’s going to save his ass. “I’m feeling kind of queasy.”

Chowder’s eyebrows draw together. “Oh, no, bro! Do you want me to walk you back to the Haus?”

He shakes his head, maybe a little too quickly. “Nah, I’m fine to go back alone. I think I just need to lie down a bit.”

“Okay, well, feel better! I’ll text you about the homework,” Chris says, and Dex can’t look at him. He just nods to his laptop.

He gathers up his things and walks briskly out into the cool September night. There’s almost no one out at this time, so thankfully no one sees him nearly sprinting across the quad and down frat row to the Haus.

When he gets into the front hall of the Haus, he tries to let the friendly atmosphere calm him down as hangs up his coat on the brass hooks. He can hear the familiar sounds of Smash from the living room, and, when he glances in, Ollie and Wicky are losing badly against the Waffles. The smell of dinner is wafting from the kitchen, and his heart leaps hopefully. But when he looks into the kitchen, Bitty is nowhere to be seen. There’s cooked broccoli on the counter and mac and cheese baking in the oven, but he catches sight of Jack’s Falc’s jacket slung over a chair and grimaces. Bitty is definitely too preoccupied to talk to him right now.

He resigns himself to being miserable alone and jogs as quietly as he can up to the second floor, though as soon as he gets to the landing he bolts into his room.

Only to find Nursey sitting on the bottom bunk, nose in a book. He curses himself—he forgot that Nursey’s usual evening discussion got canceled.

Nursey starts talking without looking up, “Hey Kim, what’s the sitch? Chowder says you left Founders in a hurry…,” but he trails off when he actually glances up at Dex. His eyes widen. It seems he can see something wrong in Dex’s face, or maybe he’s spotted that Dex’s hands are trembling slightly. “Hey, bro, you, uh, wanna sit down? Um, let me get you some water.” He gestures vaguely at the spot on the bed next to him. Dex dithers for a moment, considering just running outside again, but Nursey seems to be waiting, so Dex strides over in two steps and sinks down onto the edge of Nursey’s bed, not looking at him.

Nursey stares at him for another second, then scurries into the bathroom, returning a moment later holding Dex’s water cup. He pauses in the doorway to stare some more, his brow furrowed. Finally, he makes a nervous sound and says, “Poindexter, I’m going to need you to tell me whether you’re going to puke or you’re going to punch something because it is really hard to tell with you.”

It takes Dex a long second to comprehend what Nursey is saying through his own panic. Then he rolls his eyes as aggressively as possible and groans, “Nurse, you are the worst,” and flops backward onto Nursey’s bed for good measure.

“I’m just saying,” he says skeptically as he sits down next to Dex and hands over the water, “that all your emotions kind of look the same, and you have dangerous hockey fists. I think I am justified in being concerned for my well-being.”

Dex has to laugh a little at that. “Honestly, I might punch myself for being an idiot.”

Nursey grins. “I’d watch that on pay-per-view.”

“Fuck off, asshole. I’m in pain.” He kicks at Nursey’s ankle, but Nursey dodges him.

“Oh, yeah? Did you forget to wear sunblock again?” Nursey chirps, but the laugh quickly leaves his eyes. “But actually, what’s up, bro?”

Dex swallows. He has no idea how to say this, especially to Nursey. This whole situation is crazy. So he takes a deep breath and rolls up his sleeve to show Nursey the mark that appeared on his arm half an hour ago.

Nursey makes the smallest gasping sound. “Oh, Dex, bro…when?”

“I found it in the library just now.”

“Shit.” Nursey just stares at the mark for a minute, then he opens his arms. “C’mere, bro.”

Dex lets himself be hugged. Nursey squeezes him so tight, Dex feels like a kid in a grown-up’s arms again, and suddenly his eyes are stinging, and a tear is sliding down his nose, and he’s sniffling. Fuck, fuck, he can’t cry, this is a stupid reason to cry. He knew it would never happen with Chowder, so why does it feel like this?

Nursey speaks quietly into his ear, “It’s okay, Dex.”

Dex grits his teeth to stop from crying. “How did you know?”

“I know the signs.” Nursey’s voice is thick, like _he’s_ going to cry, and suddenly Dex can’t hold it. He’s sobbing like a baby into Nursey’s sweater. He keeps trying to stop crying, which only makes him cry more, but Nursey doesn’t say anything. It takes Dex five minutes to finally stop.

“Sorry, bro. Now your sweater’s all wet,” he says when he finally pulls away.

“It’s chill.”

They sit quietly for a few minutes. It’s weird. He and Nursey have never talked like this before.

“Um,” Nursey starts, “if it makes you feel better, I know how you feel.”

Dex gapes at him. Who would turn down _Nursey_?

Nursey pulls back his sleeve to show Dex an identical set of three black symbols on the inside of  forearm.

“Holy shit. Nursey. When—?”

“Freshman year, a little after we got back from Winter Break.” Now Nursey is shaking slightly, and Dex wraps an arm around Nursey’s shoulders and squeezes him.

“That explains why I didn’t know.” Back then, he and Nursey were just starting to get along. Of course Dex would never have heard about something like that.

Nursey laughs breathily. “Yeah.”

They fall quiet again, as Nursey stares into space and Dex processes the fact that Nursey went through this exact same feeling, two years ago. Finally, after several minutes, Dex gives into temptation and asks, “I don’t know—Can I ask—Do you mind—What happened?”

“Your eloquence is one of my favorite things about you, Dex.”

“You’re an asshole.”

Nursey smiles slightly and looks at his hands. “We tried, for a week. Farms was really great about it. I think she low-key wanted the three of us to raise kids together.”

“Those’d be great kids.”

“Yeah. They would.” He’s quiet for a long minute, and Dex wonders if that was the wrong thing to say, but then Nursey continues, “Anyway, we went on a couple dates, hooked up once. It was…nice. But after the week was over, he said he wasn’t feeling it. So we stopped.”

Nursey smiles bracingly and gives a little shrug. It’s painful to look at. Dex squeezes him tighter. Nursey rests his head on Dex’s shoulder, and Dex is struck by the strangeness of this moment. He and Nursey don’t do this emotional stuff. But now he’s cried in front of Nursey. He’s never cried in front of anyone on the team. And he’s basically seen Nursey cry. What does that mean? Are things going to be weird now?

Nursey’s phone buzzes, and he pulls out from Dex’s arm to check it. Dex wishes he’d come back and is instantly annoyed at himself. Nursey does not owe him hugs just because Dex cried at him.

The phone lights up Nursey’s face blue, and he bites his lip and looks up at Dex. “He found it.”

His stomach sinks. It’s extra real, now that Chowder knows. There is no going back.

His face must do something because Nursey wraps an arm around his shoulder, and murmurs, “Hey, bro, it’s gonna be okay.”

Fuck, his nose is stuffy again. Dex takes a deep breath and tries to pull himself together. He needs to figure this out. “Nursey,” he asks, “how did you get over hi—it?”

Nursey gives him a long look. Finally, he sighs and gazes at the wall. “I dunno. It was weird because we’d never really been a thing, but, like, that week kind of felt like a lot, you know?”

Dex can imagine vividly, and his heart hurts for Nusrey.

Nursey keeps talking. “I took some time to hang out with other friends more, and sort of just hung out with other members of the team during SMH stuff for a while. Tried to reset a little bit. He was really great about it. Wasn’t mad or anything.”

“He’s a great guy.”

“Yeah, he is.” The sudden softness in Nursey’s voice seems to hit Dex below the ribs like a punch, and he is overwhelmed by what a great guy Chris Chow really is. No matter what happens tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, Chowder won’t ever be mad at him for this. If Dex told him they had to stop talking forever, Chowder would just look at him with big sad eyes and nod understandingly. If he told Chris how he felt, all of the feelings that seemed to spread to the horizon and beyond, he wouldn’t think it was weird. He’d probably say that he loved him, too. Because Chris did love him. Just, not—not quite in the same way.

Abruptly, Nursey takes his hand and squeezes. Shocked, Dex stares at their entwined hands. When he looks up, Nursey is looking him in the eye. “Will, if you need anything, I have your back. I swear.”

Dex nods. He can't remember Nursey ever being so… vulnerable. The facade seems to have fallen away, for a moment. Dex has no idea how to express the sudden burst of raw affection he feels for Nursey, so he squeezes back, hoping maybe that gets some of the message through.

***

The next day is pretty hellish.

In Machine Organization, he tries sitting in his usual spot between Chowder and Delroy. Which, he acknowledges, is pretty monumentally stupid, but there is a part of him that hopes that nothing has to change, and he can just get over this whole soulmate thing. In any real way, nothing has changed. Dex has a crush; Chowder is straight. This was true before the marks, and being soulmates doesn’t have to change anything.

This reasoning had seemed very strong at breakfast, when Chowder was four seats down, and Dex couldn’t see him.

Now, sitting next to Chowder in lecture, Dex thinks he has never been quite so aware of another person, outside of maybe sex. He keeps getting distracted by the way Chowder takes notes, his hand jumping across the paper and leaving behind his looping, open script; Chowder’s handwriting always seems to be smiling. Every time their shoulders brush, it sends a wave of embarrassed heat through him. When Chowder flicks his bangs back, Dex spends a moment just appreciating his shiny hair. Shit, he can smell Chowder’s fucking pomade – it’s the nice pine-smelling stuff he keeps in the locker room.

Class finally ends, and Dex jumps out of his seat and heads to his next class as quickly as possible. Mercifully, Chowder isn’t in this one, but the moment Dex sits down at his usual computer, Mike asks him, “Hey, are you and Chris free to keep working on the 181 homework tonight? We almost finished last night, but I still don’t really know what I’m doing wrong on problem six.”

Dex shrugs, and the TA saves him from having to explain anything by starting to describe the tasks she wants them to work on.

Dex has just finished his first attempt at the assignment when Jared, on his left, leans over and nudges his shoulder, “Hey, Poindexter.”

“I’m kind of busy, Jared.” Dex says shortly as he sets the code to compile. He really doesn’t have much interest in talking to Jared, a guy who would be a LAX bro if he had any talent.

“Just wanted to ask if Chow is going to the party on Friday.”

Dex’s jaw clenches, and he responds just on the right side of polite, “What party?” His code comes back. Failed all tests.

He can see Jared blush out of the corner of his eye and is writing his commit note as Jared responds, “Oh, um, shit, it’s a thing at Kevin’s place; I thought all the CS juniors were going.”

“Cool. Have fun.”

Dex finishes his commit:

_$ grep –i fml commits.txt_

_failed all tests. maybe send fn doesn’t work_

_why are there so many segfaults_

_i need to punch something_

He doesn’t talk to anyone until the end of his last class, 181. Though, somehow, four more people manage to ask him about Chowder even though he eats lunch by himself. He wonders if people ask Chowder about him. He doubts it.

As 181 is packing up, he catches up with Chowder. “Hey, C, you busy?”

Chowder looks at him with clear relief. “Never for you, Dex!”

Oh, Jesus, Dex thinks, why does he have to be such a good fucking person?

They walk back to the Haus, chatting about nothing. It’s a strange moment of reprieve, when everything feels just short of normal. They talk like nothing has changed, though he thinks he can hear a quiet ringing in his ears like a warning. When they’re at the gate to the Haus yard, Chowder gives him a glance. “Wanna hang in my room?”

Dex just nods. The sudden prospect of having this conversation has turned his throat dry.

They pass through the Haus, and everyone is chilling out as usual. Bitty is baking. The Waffles are playing Smash. At least everyone else seems to be having a good day.

They get to Chowder’s room, and Chowder jumps onto his bed and pats the spot next to him. Dex climbs on slowly, avoiding Chowder’s eye. His brain is buzzing with white noise.

He closes his eyes for a moment and begins, “Chris, I think I won’t be able to hang out for a while.”

“What? Why?” Chowder sounds hurt and confused, and listening back to what he just said, Dex realizes he is an idiot.

“Not because I don’t like you! I just, like you too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have–” Dex searches desperately for the right word, “–feelings. For you. Like, wanting to date you, feelings. ”

“Oh.” Chowder’s face is unreadable, and Dex hardly even knows what he wants Chowder to say next. After a long moment, Chowder says, “But why would that mean that we can’t hang out?”

“I talked to Nursey, and he said distance would help fix it faster, and to be honest, today was really hard.”

“Oh, jeez, I’m sorry!” Chowder looks horrified, and Dex puts a hand on his arm.

“No, Chowder, please, it’s not your fault. It’s my fault, and I think if I spend some time away, we’ll be able to hang out again, soon.” Shit, his throat feels thick. He’s going to cry again.

Chowder’s brow furrows. “You don’t have to be sorry, Will. It’s not your fault either, and there’s nothing wrong with needing space. I totally get it.”

“Yeah, but it’s gonna suck.” His eyes sting. Fuck.

Chowder nods. “Yeah. It is gonna suck. But I’m always here for you. I’m not going anywhere, and when you’re ready, it’ll be awesome. We’re gonna be great soulmates.” He’s got tears rolling down his nose, but unlike Dex, his eyes don’t seem to get swollen and his face doesn’t turn red.

“Ugh, you even look good when you cry. I just can’t win.”

Chowder laughs wetly, and his weird laugh makes Dex laugh, and they end up giggling slightly deliriously for way too long—every time Dex thinks they’ve finished, Chowder starts laughing again, and Dex just can’t help himself.

Dex is about to get off the bed when Chowder catches his shoulder. “Hey, um, I know it’s not ideal, but do you still want to do–” he gestures at his left forearm, “–y’know?”

Dex had totally forgotten. “Oh, yeah—definitely.” He rolls up his sleeve, and Chris does the same, revealing marks that going all the way up to Chowder’s shoulder.

“Wow, you’re a lovable guy, Chris.”

Chowder smiles and traces a finger up his arm. “I’m lucky. Do you want to go first, or should I?”

Dex shrugs. His father would probably have opinions about it, but he was no longer in the business of caring what his father thought about anything.

“Okay, I’ll go first.” He starts starts with a name in Chinese characters on his shoulder. “This is my cousin, Jeremy, on my dad’s side. He’s my age, and we became soulmates in preschool.” The next name is in English, and Chowder points to it, explaining, “Julian was my best friend in fourth grade all through middle school and we’ve been tight ever since. And this is my little cousin on my dad’s side. She’s 15 now. Her English name is Michelle, but we all call her On-on ‘cause her name is Mung-on in Cantonese. I love her so freaking much. We became soulmates while I was babysitting her and there was a little fire in the house, but it was okay.”

“At some point,” Dex interjects, “I want to hear the full story.

Chowder laughs, “Of course!” He continues with such ease, Dex can just hear the many, many times Chowder’s explained his names to soulmates, “This is another, cousin, Jeffrey, but on my mom’s side. This is Katie—she and I became friends in middle school, and we became soulmates freshman year of high school. Dion and Cyrus here were both on my team in high school.”

Dex can’t help but smile when he sees who the next one is, and Chowder shoots him a grin. “Caitlyn Farmer is my beautiful, funny, sexy girlfriend, Derek Nurse is one of my best friends—he’s this guy I met on my college hockey team—and this one, William James Poindexter–” he traces Dex’s name with his finger–“is one of my favorite people in the world, and one of the greatest friends I’ve ever known.” Chowder gives Dex a soft punch on the shoulder, and Dex punches him back, wishing he had the words to tell Chowder how much he loves him, crush or no.

Chowder smiles and looks at Dex’s arm with excited expectation. Dex clears his throat puts out his arm to mirror Chowder. “This is my Grandma Beth. She was my mom’s mom. She, um, was the first person I came out to.” Chowder is gazing him so sweetly and steadily that it makes his heart hurt. “These are my younger sisters, Ellie and Myra—I might have called them Elsie and Mya to you before—and this is my Mom. And this is Christopher Franklin Chow, probably the best person I’ve ever met.”

Chowder tackle hugs him. When Chowder pulls back, he looks at his own wrist again, and retraces the cursive letters of Dex’s name. “Who wrote yours?”

“Grandma Beth.”

“How come?”

Dex pauses; he’s never had to actually explain this, which is just another reminder that he’s a local-yokel from Maine. “It’s an Irish Catholic thing. It’s written at your baptism, so, like, you have the priest, who’s a man, and who brings you into the Church, and a woman, usually your mother, or her mother, who brings you into, like, life, with the name.” He pauses awkwardly before remembering the next thing he should be saying. “Who did yours?”

“My grandfather, on my dad’s side.”

“How come?”

“It’s a Chinese thing—the oldest person in the family does it.”

Dex traces the calligraphy with his fingers. “It’s really beautiful—what does it sound like?”

Chowder takes his arm. He points to each symbol and pronounces them:

周“ _Zow_ ,” 夢“ _Mung,”_ 林“ _Lam. Zow_ is Chow, and _Munglam_ is my personal name–” he smiles a little, “–it means ‘dreaming forest.’”

“That’s awesome.”

Chowder looks up at him with a soft smile. “My mom’s favorite play is _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , the Shakespeare with all the teenagers who go into a magical forest. And there’s a lot of dreaming.”

“That’s insanely classy. Your mom is a nerd.”

Chowder punches him in the shoulder. “Where does your name come from?”

Dex is suddenly full of dread. They’ve come to the end of the questions. After he gives his answer, the bubble of soulmate traditions will be popped, and he’ll have to go start working on getting over his feelings. He won’t be able to just hang out with Chowder. This is it.

Dex wants to drag it out, but there is so little to tell. “My Grandpa Billy, and my Uncle Jim. He died in Vietnam.”

Chowder nods, and they sit there quietly for a minute. Dex kind of never wants to leave, but he forces himself to remember just how much today had sucked. And how much he really wants to kiss Chris right now. This will not work.

Dex slides off the bed and slings his backpack over his shoulder. Chowder follows him, and when he turns to say goodbye, Chowder has his arms stretched out for a hug.

It’s a peculiar hug. It’s good because Chowder is a great hugger, but usually hugs make Dex feel like a kid—like he’s hugging his mom or his siblings or his middle school team. He didn’t think that being an adult would change the way he hugs, but as he feels Chris’s arms around him and squeezes back as tight as he can, knowing that he has to leave, he feels so horribly old.

When they pull apart, they’re both sniffling again. “Seeya at practice, C.”

“See you around, Dexy.”

Dex walks out into the hallway and takes the stairs down to the basement. Mercifully, no one is in there. He sits on the old green couch and cries like a baby.

***

When he finally pulls it together, he thinks he wants everything to stop feeling strange for a little bit, so he heads up to his room and calls home. His mom should be home right now, and he thinks the girls will be back from practice.

“Hey Billy! This is a nice surprise!” His mom’s voice is like a warm blanket and a fresh cup of coffee. He instantly feels better.

He settles into his desk chair. “Hey Mom, how’s it going?”

“It’s going. The store was crazy today.”

“Yeah?”

“Ed Calhoun thinks he’s going to fix his own boat, and he was buying all sorts of supplies. Not that he knows what he’s doing. He’s gonna wreck it. It’s going to cost twice as much to fix it when he comes to his senses.”

“Well, that’s Ed.”

She chuckles. “That’s Ed. Billy, the girls just got home—you want me to call them in? I can put you on speakerphone.”

“That’d be great, thanks, Mom.”

He can practically see her covering the microphone with her hand, and he hears her faintly, calling “Elsie! Mya! Billy’s on the phone!”

Her voice comes back, “They’re coming. How come you’re calling today? Did something happen?”

“A little bit.”

“Yeah?”

The girls come in and interrupt before he has to answer, though. He hears Ellie first, “Hiya, Willy,” then Myra after, “Hey Billy! Guess what?”

“What, Myra?”

“I’m singing the solo at church this Sunday because Ms. Catherine has a cold.”

“Wow! You sure you won’t meow again?”

“That was when I was eight!”

He gets a full update on the goings-on in the girls’ lives since he last called two days ago. Smart, steady Ellie has already finished three college applications since the beginning of the year, and she just submitted another one. “I think I want to get them all in before the playoffs because after that I’ll have lots of big school projects.” Myra is practicing singing every minute of the day, which got her into some trouble during a math test. “I just kinda didn’t realize I was doing it.”

When they’ve finished telling him about soccer practice, his mother cuts in, “Billy, what did you say was going on at school?”

“Oh, uh,” he takes a deep breath, “I got a soulmate.”

His sisters scream and he can hear his mom gasp, “That’s amazing Billy! Who is it?”

Myra asks, “Are they cute? Do you like them?”

He can’t help but smile into the phone, “It’s Chris.”

“Oh.” He thinks it’s his mother, and there’s a long pause before she continues, “Well, he’s a wonderful young man. You’re very lucky to have a friend like that.” He can hear his mother biting her lip with concern over the phone.

He has to laugh. “Was my crush that obvious?”

“No, Billy, I’m just your mother.”

Ellie interjects, “Yes, it was. SO obvious.”

“Shut up, Else,” he shoots back fondly. He loves that girl, even when she drives him up a wall.

Myra asks, “He’s got a girlfriend, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, honey,” Mom answers softy.

“Sorry, Billy.”

They’re quiet for a moment before his mom suddenly says, “Shit! Pardon my French, I’ve gotta go. I’m covering for Cindy tonight. I’ll talk to you on Friday, Billy, okay?”

“Yeah, Mom. Love you.”

“Love you, too!” He can hear the door slam distantly as she goes out to the car.

“Anything else happen that you guys haven’t told me yet?” he asks.

Ellie’s voice comes, speaking much more quietly and seriously than before, “Dad called last night.”

His stomach ties up in knots. “Yeah?”

“They were yelling. I think he wants to see Myra.”

“I don’t want to see him,” Myra says bitterly.

Ellie replies gently, “It’s his legal right, Mya”

He feels a warm glow of affection for Myra. “Mya, it’s okay, it won’t hurt my feelings if you see him.”

“I’ll hate it the whole time.” Even though this is technically a bad thing, he loves her for it.

“You’re a sweetie.” He leans back, and wishes he could cuddle Myra like when she was little, but his eye catches on his 181 textbook, and a cold rush of anxiety climbs up his chest. “Hey, guys, I gotta go. I have a lot of work to do tonight.”

Myra calls, “Okay, love you Billy!”

“I’ll keep you updated on the Dad situation. Love you,” Ellie says soberly.

“Love you both.”

He hangs up and stares at his 181 textbook. He has three problems to go, and it’s due tomorrow. And he has to figure it out alone. He is so fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: homophobia mention


	2. Chapter 2

Nursey gets a text from Chowder as he’s walking into the dining hall. _Are you free to hang out after dinner?_

 _Yeah. What’s up?_ Nursey replies, typing with one hand and swiping his student ID with the other.

Chowder’s reply pops up, _I talked to Dex_

Nursy sighs and writes back, _Gotcha_ ,before jogging to the halal station; it’s falafel night, and he needs to grab some before it disappears.

He spends dinner with his pen poised over a notebook, trying to articulate the emotions sizzling under his skin and making his chest tight. But he can’t write anything. Ever since last night, his brain has been just slightly fuzzy.

By the time he heads back to the Hause, there is a slight misting of cool rain, and the sky is an even field of deep blue clouds. It clears his head a little, and he tries to let the beauty of Samwell sink into his bones as he walks back to Frat Row.

As soon as he gets inside, he finds Chowder curled around his laptop on the new couch, and sticks out his hand to ruffle Chowder’s hair. “Hey, C.”

“Hey Nursey. My room?”

Chowder looks a little strung out, and Nursey just wants to wrap Chowder in his arms and hold him until he smiles again. “Chill. Want me to make a pot of tea?”

“Fuck yes, that would be amazing. I need tea so badly.”

Nursey pulls down Bitty’s teapot from the kitchen cabinet and turns on the water boiler (they acquired it after he set a fire while using the normal metal teapot. Dex had been so gobsmacked when he found out, he just stared at him for ten minutes saying “You set a fire? By boiling water?” over and over). He fills the pot roughly a quarter of the way with sink water, then the rest of the way with boiling, and adds two bags of green tea.

He calls out to the living room, “C, my darling bro, would you grab some mugs?”

Chowder walks in. “Fat chance. I’ll take the teapot, you take the mugs.”

Nursey pouts, but he grabs a pair of mugs and follows Chowder up the staircase.

When they get to Chowder’s room, Nursey sets down the mugs and climbs onto Chowder’s lofted bed. Chowder pours a small bit of tea into one of the mugs and proclaims, “It’s done!” then pours them each a full mug.

When they’re both settled with a cup of tea, Nursey asks him, “So, what happened?”

Chowder shrugs morosely and sips his tea. “It was okay. He wasn’t mad or anything.”

“Why would he be mad?”

Chowder shrugs again and stares into his mug. “I kind of wish he would’ve gotten mad. But he was just really sad. He should be mad at me.”

“It’s not your fault, Chris. It’s no one’s fault.”

Chowder looks at him with big, soft eyes, and says softly, “I know, but it sucks so much for him. And it’s stupid that I can’t feel the same way.” Chowder bites his lip, and Nursey knows he’s talking about more than him and Dex.

Nursey tries to keep his breath from shaking. His heart is beating too fast. He knows Chowder is just apologizing, but hearing how much Chowder wishes he could date him is overwhelming. “It’s okay, bro,” Nursey says, using every inch of his will to keep his voice steady and strong, “It happens, and you guys will get through it.”

Chowder nods and stares at the far wall. “ Yeah, I think it’s going to be a lot like last time. I’m not going to see him very much for a while.” Even though Chowder sounds immensely sad, Nursey briefly thinks _Alhamdulillah _for Dex’s good sense.

He can’t help but remember this moment, almost three years ago. Chowder looking at him with the same sad eyes and saying, _I can’t Derek – I’m so sorry. I’m so so so sorry._

Nursey stares at tea, trying to tamp down on the sudden swell of feeling inside him. Since talking to Dex, it’s been as though freshman year were trying to swallow him whole. He’d thought he worked through his feelings for Chowder, but as he watches Chowder morosely sip green tea and have his second best friend ‘break up’—if you could call it that—he feels the urge again to take Chowder in his arms, to hold him (and kiss him if he’s being honest with himself), until the strain melts out his shoulders and his mouth grows pliant and wanting, until he can grin again.

He shakes his head. He is here to support Chowder. He cannot get distracted by the zombies of his past emotions.

“I know it sucks, but he’ll be okay. You’ll be better friends afterward, like us.” He nudges Chowder’s shoulder encouragingly.

Chowder sighs, “Yeah, you’re probably right. But did it have to happen, like, four months after he came out? During his whole dad situation? It’s hella unfair.”

“Chowder, if I have learned anything, it’s that soulmate marks always show up at the most inopportune moments. It’s, like, the law or something.”

Chowder laughs. “Did I ever tell you about when Katie and I became soulmates?”

Nursey’s chest loosens a little. Chowder is laughing; this is better. “No, what happened?”

“She puked on me after we got drunk for the first time. I found it when I was holding her hair in the bathroom.”

“ _Ya Allah. _That’s gross.”

They’re quiet for a long minute, until Chowder asks, “Hey, Nursey, can I ask you a favor?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I know you and Dex don’t have the best history—”

“Hey, we’re a lot better these days.”

“I know, I know. I just wondered if you’d kind of, like, watch out for him?”

Nursey cocks his head in a question. Dex does not like having people watch out for him. He is a watch-er out-er. He’s teaching the Waffles how to iron their clothes properly and how to make a good fried egg. He makes the Haus coffee in the morning. He stares at Bitty in the library to make him work on his thesis. When Nursey once had the gall to get him a cup of coffee during an all-nighter, Dex gave him a dirty look.

Chowder sighs and runs his fingers through his hair, “the thing is, when our marks happened, you went and hung out with all your English friends and your arts friends. But Dex and I have almost all the same friends. We have hockey friends, we have hackathon friends, and we have problem set friends. I am friends with literally all of Dex’s friends. And I don’t want him to just hole himself up alone all the time.”

Nursey nods; that does seem a Dex-like behavior. “Don’t worry, C. I’ll keep an eye on him. I won’t let him get to full-on curmudgeon.”

Chowder snuggles up against him. “You’re the best, Nursey.”

“Nah, you’re the best, C.”

Chowder smiles. “You busy tonight?”

“I’ve got time—what’re you thinking?”

“I’ve really got a hankering to watch _Kill Bill_. You down?”

“Always.”

Nursey is glad for the distraction of the movie. He lets the bright colors wash over him and gets caught up in Chowder’s excitement. It lasts through most of _Kill Bill_ , but after a while the warm press of Chowder’s shoulder and old memories of watching this movie conspire to induce a strange, nostalgic headspace, and he can’t resist the riptide of feeling.

He remembers the moment he found Chowder’s name on his arm. It was three days before his birthday, and Chowder was looking at him so sweetly. _I’ve never been with a guy before, but if you want we can totally try. I really like you._

He remembers he watched this movie in his room at Andover, five years ago now, and a boy’s deep brown eyes crinkled and soft lips spoke against his ear: _Lucy Liu is the closest I will ever come to being in love with a woman._

Chowder held his hips and gazed into his eyes on the dance floor at their Freshman Valentines kegster. Nursey let his fingers wander into the damp hair at the nape of his neck and wanted so badly.

 _Samwell for sure?_ the boy asked as he put his soccer kit away in the Andover lockers. Nursey twined his fingers into his hair, against the brown skin of his neck, and nodded. _Okay, then, I’m decided. MIT class of 2018!_

The night Chowder told him it wouldn’t work, there was only one person Nursey wanted to talk to, and he trembled against the lamppost outside his dorm, begging the universe to bend for just a moment and show him a sweet brown face and dark, laughing eyes.

About halfway through the movie, Nursey stands up abruptly. “I’m sorry, I totally forgot, I promised my parents I’d call tonight.”

Chowder looks at him a little surprised, but he nods. “Yeah, of course. Thanks for hanging out with me.”

“No problem!” Nursey says as he hastily picks up his backpack and heads for the door.

Nursey glances into his room, but Dex is in there, working on something on his laptop, so he heads downstairs. The Tadpoles and Waffles have taken over the living room, and Bitty is in the kitchen, so he goes down to the basement.

He sinks into the green couch, leaning against the armrest and pulling his legs up, leaving space on the opposite side for another person to face him. “Hey baby, my life is crazy right now.”

The air does not speak back, but he imagines a boy sitting across from him, watching him with big dark eyes, his brown hands holding his knees close in his usual pose, looking thoughtfully at him.

“Last night, Dex got Chowder’s soulmark. Which, you know, is not _surprising_. Like, honestly, kinda shocked it took this long. But, like, it’s kind of the worst.”

The imaginary boy imaginarily blinks at him and cocks his head. Nursey feels the stress seep out of his shoulders, and he can hear the change in his own tone to an old comfortable chatter he remembers well, and he talks to his knees.

“It’s like my freshman year at Samwell is happening all over again. Like, all of those feelings are coming back. Just now, I was watching _Kill Bill Vol. 1_ with Chowder, and, like, I was kind of crushing on him, but I was really, really missing you. Like, so bad. I remembered lots of high school stuff. And, um, last night, I dreamt about you.”

He smiles at the boy; though, when he looks over, there is only empty air and his breath catches a little. “Don’t worry, Juanca, it was a good dream. We were in Yu-Gi-Oh, and you were kind of Yugi, and you were in some kind of competition, and you were all stressed out. But then we were on a roadie together. It was fun, but–” he swallows, “–the end was graduation. And, like, not to get you down, pretty boy, but that still makes me super sad and shit. And that’s when I woke up, and I can’t really make that feeling go away. I miss you, you know?”

He slides down and lets imaginary Juan Carlos lie on his chest, though he’s pretty sure that makes him crazy. “I know you and my therapist would not approve of me using the c-word, but I feel crazy, okay? You aren’t supposed to talk to dead people, right? You’re supposed to be able to get over it.”

He can see the judgmental look his dead boyfriend is giving him.

“Just because you’re dead doesn’t give you permission to be judge me, okay? I know you’re probably chilling in Jannah, telling my grandparents embarrassing stories about me, but right now you’re a figment of my imagination, and you have to be nice to me.”

He raises his eyebrow at the empty space, but there is no reaction. He can never imagine Juan Carlos into speaking his beautiful, idiosyncratic thoughts. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. If he’s going to summon an imaginary version of the boy he loves to deal with his problems, he should at least deal with them a little bit. “Baby, I’m scared. I don’t want to go back to that. I can’t do it again.”

Nursey tries not to even look directly at those memories: the moments that haunt him. The scenes that he swore he would never reenact, even if it meant he stopped dating forever. But talking to Juan Carlos like this is already a harbinger that his mind is running over the same old rails.

He whispers quietly to himself, “You don’t need romantic love to be happy. You are worthy of love.”

The heavy weight on his chest doesn’t disappear, and he knows the depression is coming, like a tsunami moving steadily to shore. He prays for a moment that it will be an easy one. _In shaa Allah._

The weight in his chest doesn’t change. He sighs and tries to put off the inevitable by hanging out with his lovely, though dead, boyfriend. “Juanca, will you stay with me while I do my Dickinson reading? I think you’ll like it.” Juan Carlos just smiles back, but Nursey answers yes on his behalf. “Now get up, imaginary boy, or I’ll knee you in your imaginary ass while I’m getting my backpack.”

***

Nursey does his best not to think about Juan Carlos or Chowder; he keeps busy. He writes incessantly about random trite crap; he goes to as many sessions of extra ice time and lifting as he can without the trainers getting on his ass; he listens to his hype playlist constantly. He doesn’t hang out with Chowder much, which sucks, but he doesn’t talk to Juan Carlos either, which he supposes is a good thing. He successfully doesn’t feel too miserable for about a week. He feels a sort of electric numbness, which isn’t nice, but it could be worse. As a result, he doesn’t realize how real the problem has become until the kegster.

Bitty wants a kegster for the last weekend before the season starts in October, so Nursey throws himself into doing logistics with Louis. Nursey spends Saturday covering the Haus lights in beautiful fabrics and rearranging the furniture into the perfect party position.

As the crowd swells, he sips his punch and watches. The tub juice Ollie cooked up seems popular; Nursey can smell the sweet, biting aroma filling the air. The lighting is definitely working; everyone looks very pretty in the blushing colors. Louis’s playlist is as killer as he said it would be, and the dance floor has the perfect ebb and flow between crazed and chill.

Nursey doesn’t even realize how much time has passed until Chowder sidles up to him and says, “Nursey, this is a great party! Stop worrying and dance.”

“What?” Nursey’s just been making sure that the beginning of the party is going well. That seems like a pretty normal thing to do, until he checks his phone and realizes he’s been sitting in this spot for an hour and a half.

Chowder cocks his head. “Hey, you okay?”

Nursey rolls his shoulders and smiles up at Chowder, “Yeah, ‘course. I just lost track of time.”

Nursey finds someone to dance with and jams out with them for a while, but while he’s at the bar refilling his pineapple juice, he realizes that he doesn’t remember what his dance partner looked like, and suddenly his lungs feel tight. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe, but the party is too loud, too close, and in the multicolored dark of his closed eyes, it feels claustrophobic.

He edges around the crowd until he’s at the staircase then runs upstairs and tugs open the door to his room. As soon as he’s in, he collapses against the wall and enjoys the quiet like a cool breeze. Eventually, he realizes that there is someone next to him. When he opens his eyes, he finds Dex standing in front of him, staring at him with a furrowed brow.

If he had the emotional capacity, he’d probably be mortified, but he can’t summon up the energy. Instead, he says a breathy, “Hey,” and closes his eyes.

Dex asks, “Hey. How’s the kegster going?” He doesn’t sound like he’s in his feelings about Derek being up here. He sounds shocking chill, actually.

Nursey doesn’t move except to look at Dex. “Fine.”

Dex raises an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah. Just, give me a minute.”

Dex gives a single nod and returns to his desk.

Nursey sits down against the wall and pulls his phone out to scroll mindlessly through Instagram. The anxiety is still keening somewhere at the bottom of his ribs, but as he scrolls through the Instas of five different dogs, it slowly eases off, and the post-anxiety exhaustion begins to set in.

A voice comes in the dark, and a hand is jostling his shoulder, waking him out of his dozy nap. “Nursey, don’t sleep on the floor. It’s bad for your back,” says Dex.

“I can do what I want,” Nursey groans, but he takes Dex’s hand and lets himself get pulled to his feet. “Why’re you here? You going to the kegster?”

Dex shakes his head. “Nah. Wasn’t feeling it.”

Nursey’s pretty sure he’s lying, and he should probably get at the real answer since he’s supposed to be looking out for Dex, but he doesn’t really want Dex to give him the third degree either; there’s still anxious heat quietly pulsing in his chest, so he says, “Cool, same. What’re you doing?”

Dex blushes and glances at his desk. “Homework.”

“Wow—what a party.”

“What are you doing, then?”

“I’m just gonna lie down. That bother you?”

Dex shakes his head. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Nursey replies as he rolls into bed.

Thankfully, Dex drops it and returns to his desk, and Nursey is free to stare at the dark wood of the top bunk.

He’d thought he was doing so well. He hadn’t thought about Juan Carlos or Chowder hardly at all. He’d kept himself active.

But depression with anxious tendencies bends to no one, he supposes.

Nursey lies there for maybe half an hour before giving in to himself. He rolls over in his sheets and imagines Juan Carlos curled around him with his nose tucked into Nursey’s curls.

He whispers almost without voice, “Hey, baby. Would you snuggle me? I had a bad day.”

So Nursey snuggles with an imaginary boy, who imaginarily holds his hand. His heart lifts, and his anxiety grows soft. And he knows he is pathetic for taking comfort from an imaginary dead person, but he can’t find it in him to care right now. Juan Carlos has him, and the world is just slightly better.

***

Nursey tries to tell Mom, Mama, and his sister Aisha about the party during their weekly skype session on Monday, but every time he thinks he’s worked up the energy to do it, he fails. Aisha is having problems with her apartment in Baltimore, and both of his parents are slammed this week because congress is starting a session in a few days and the fall art show season is fully underway, and he just hates to worry them. Which he knows is an excuse, but it’s so much easier to just listen and get swept up in their issues than think about his own.

He finally ends up telling his writing crew about his anxiety issues while he rants about how terrible his poetry has been.

“Oh, honey,” coos Day as they squeeze into the armchair seat alongside him and wrap themself around him, “that sucks.”

Chamarie furrows her brow and sips tea from her delicate teacup. “Do you usually get panic attacks? I’ve never known you to get them before.”

He shrugs and Day yelps. “Oh, sorry, D.” He nuzzles into their shoulder in apology. “Um, no. I had a few things close to panic attacks freshman and sophomore year.”

“Ah.” She narrows her eyes at him. “Then what’s happening now to bring that back” She stares at him with her X-ray eyes.

He bites his lip, unsure how much to tell. If he tells them about Juan Carlos, they’ll freak, but if he only says that Dex and Chowder got their soulmarks, they’ll think he’s being ridiculous.

“Come on, spit it out,” Eun Ae says from her nest of cushions and blankets. “We won’t judge you.”

He can see Day shooting her a look, but he smiles. “You’re fucking right you can’t judge me. I still remember the ‘flocks of denim butterflies.’”

Eun Ae grimaces at him. “We swore never to speak of that abomination again. But don’t try to distract me! What’s the story, morning glory?”

Nursey closes his eyes and picks his words carefully. “So, when I was a freshman, I got Chris Chow’s name on my arm. And he’s straight.”

Eun Ae and Day give little groans of sympathy in unison.

“But we tried dating anyway. And we lasted for about a week.” Nursey doesn’t understand why it still hurts so much to say this.

He feels something shifting around his feet and opens his eyes to find Eun Ae arranging one of her blankets around his ankles—her way of giving him a bear hug.

“It generally really sucked because I really liked him. Like, I’d kind of had a thing for him for a while, and then we dated, and I kind of loved it–” his voice cracks a little, and Day gives him a squeeze “–but we broke up, and yeah. It sucked. And like, a week ago Chowder became soulmates with Dex—”

“Redhead Republican guy?” Chamarie asks, still watching him with laser focus.

“Formerly Republican, _Alhamdulillah_ , but, yeah. And, like, ever since then I’ve been in this weird funk.”

Eun Ae rests her head on his knee, and Day says quietly, “I’m sorry honey,” but Chamarie looks at him thoughtfully.

“What do you think, Cha?” he asks her.

Chamarie’s mouth quirks to the side. “You’re not jealous of redhead are you?”

He almost laughs. “Um, no. He is _suffering_. He did homework during a kegster, I think just to avoid Chris.” He makes a mental note that he needs to be helping Dex, even if his brain is flipping out. He doesn’t deserve to suffer alone.

Eun Ae frowns. “Yikes.”

Cha just nods. “Okay, I have a hypothesis.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Well, if you had anxiety issues in freshman and sophomore year, you might have some trauma left over from that time, and watching someone else go through the same thing might be triggering that and bringing you back to the emotional place you were in during Freshman year.” She talks slowly and thoughtfully, gently rotating her teacup in her hands.

That’s pretty consistent with how Nursey’s been thinking about it. “Yeah, okay, but what do I do about it?”

“Hey, I’m armchair psychoanalyzing you for free. Don’t get pissy with me.”

“Sorry.”

She dramatically sweeps her braids over her shoulder and gives a long-suffering sigh. “Anyway, what I was going to say is that you will probably need to work through those feelings again, but, like, hopefully in a more permanent way.”

“Wow, and I thought my therapist homework was bad.”

She throws one of the beautiful pillows Eun Ae keeps around her room at him. “Well, screw you, too!”

“I’m just saying, you are pretty good at this for someone who has no interest in dating people.”

“Being aro doesn’t exclude you from the human condition. I’ve seen Rom-Coms. I get the concept.”

Eun Ae gasps and smiles up at him. “Derek, you should do all the stupid breakup shit like watching Rom-Coms!”

Day is suddenly very excited. “I can send you my whole breakup playlist and all my movie recommendations.”

Eun Ae interjects, “You should watch _Heathers_. And _The Room_.”

“Those are not Rom-Coms, Eun Ae!”

“But they have love in them, Day. And they’re funny. Rom. Com!”

Nursey really laughs for the first time in a week and sits back to watch Day and Eun hash out the definition of Rom-Com. Chamarie smiles softly at him, and Nursey is overwhelmed by how much he adores her. She doesn’t know the whole story, but she’s given him a plan to work off of, and that is pretty major.

***

He doesn’t have a clue about how to work through his Juan Carlos emotions, but he can get over Chowder again. Getting over a break up has set stages, and he can do that. And, it conveniently overlaps with helping Dex get over Chowder; they can get over Chowder, together. Though Dex doesn’t have to know that. Ideally, Dex doesn’t know Nursey is trying to help him at all, so he won’t get all defensive.

So, one day, before his Friday morning class Nursey texts Dex, _Want to watch a movie tonight?_

He finds Dex’s reply, _k. what movie?_ after lunch and heads to the library to look at DVDs before  Jumu’ah. He laughs when he finds _The Room_. Eun Ae would love it if he actually watched it with Dex. He jokingly texts back, _How about The Room?_ and keeps looking.

A moment later, though, his phone buzzes and he sees Dex’s message, _whats it about?_

For a moment his eyes bulge and he doesn’t breathe. Dex has never seen _The Room_. He, Derek Nurse, could witness William J. Poindexter witnessing _The Room_ for the first time. Talk about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

He grabs the DVD off the shelf and immediately texts back, _It’s a classic drama. Don’t google it, you’ll see spoilers._

He almost skips to the student center prayer room. Tonight is going to be legendary.

***

When he gets to the their room after dinner, Nursey finds Dex working at his computer.  “Working? Poindexter, it’s Friday night.”

Dex looks up guiltily. “Yeah, um, I was thinking I shouldn’t watch the movie? I have so much work.”

“When is this due?”

“Uh, Wednesday?”

“ _Ya Allah_ , Dex, get off your fucking computer and watch a movie for two hours. It won’t kill you.”

Dex sighs and rolls his swivel chair over to the bottom bunk, “Okay. What is this Room thing about anyway?”

Nursey starts unpacking his laptop and pulling out his DVD drive. “ _The Room_ is a modern cinematic classic about a wonderful man named Johnny and his fiancée Lisa, who is unhappy in their relationship.”

Dex gives his patented look of skepticism. “Um, that sounds super boring, Nursey.”

Nursey keeps his face as blank as possible as he places his laptop on the desk chair. “Don’t worry, I promise you’ll find it interesting.”

He goes to start the movie, but Dex suddenly yelps, “Wait!” He reaches into his desk drawer and extracts a family-sized bag of potato chips.

“What?! Dex, you’ve been holding out on me!”

Dex looks bashful. “My mom sent them to me after I told her about Chowder. I’ve got barbecue-flavor, too.”

“Next time.”

They open up the chips, and Nursey starts the movie. The experience is every bit as magical as he was hoping.

At the beginning, Dex is merely confused.

“Wait, why did that kid just walk in? Do they not lock their doors?

“Is his name _Dinny_?

“What is up with that guy’s accent? And his hair looks like it originally belonged to a dirty cocker spaniel.”

Nursey keeps his expression completely neutral, merely saying, “the beginning is a little weird. Just wait a bit.”

As the movie goes on, though, Dex’s exclamations shift from confusion to frustration to righteous fury.

“Why is he humping her belly button?

“Is this just…the same sex scene again?

“Wait, are we just going to drop the issue that her mother has _cancer?!_

“WHY ARE THEY HAVING SEX ON THE STAIRS, NURSEY?!”

Nursey has to pause the movie to laugh at that point. Dex still doesn’t seem to understand what’s happening to him. “Nursey, they’re having sex on a spiral staircase! That is the most uncomfortable place to fuck I can possibly imagine! What the hell is up with this movie?”

Nursey can’t stop laughing, and Dex continues on, “Don’t laugh! I think my issues with this movie are pretty legit. What about this do you find so funny?”

Nursey has to force his lungs to breathe so he can reply, “You’re just–” he laughs, “–so–” he can’t stop laughing, “– _offended!_ ” He falls over laughing.

“I think I’m pretty right to be offended. I don’t care how classic this movie is, I think it sucks.”

He breathes carefully until he thinks he’s stopped laughing and props himself on his elbow, “Dex, it’s a classic because it sucks. It’s famous for being one of the worst movies ever.”

For a moment, Dex does not understand, and he stares at Nursey with his jaw hanging slightly open. Then Dex dives at him, yelling, “You asshole!” Nursey laughs and tries to escape, but Dex grabs him, and they wrestle until Dex pins him against the wall. “You’re a dick, Nurse.”

“Well,” Nursey says with his face smushed against the wall, “you’re hilarious.”

Dex snorts and lets him go. “Do you want to finish the movie?”

“I really do.”

“Fine.”

They settle back down in front of the laptop and resume the movie. Luckily, Dex’s rage is not tempered by the knowledge that this movie is famously bad, but, now, Nursey gets to add to the running commentary.

“Nursey, no one in this movie talks like a human being.” “Maybe it’s just you who doesn’t talk like a human being. Have you ever thought about that, Dexy?” “Fuck off.”

“Ooh, Dex, look, a painting of a spoon!” “What the actual fuck.”

“Oh, Claudette. The only sane person in this movie.” “That is a very low bar.”

“Nurse, she’s telling her daughter to stay with the guy who hit her!” “Okay, less sane than I remembered.”

“I’m gonna hear ‘Oh, Hai Mark!’ in my nightmares.”

“They’re gonna break their faces! Who plays football in an alleyway?!” “Icons.”

When the movie starts kicking into high gear madness, though, Dex seems to lose the ability to speak in full sentences and simply yells expletives and indignant phrases at the computer. Nursey just laughs.

“What in God’s name—?

“This is just—

“Oh jeez, is this actually…shit…you have got to be…please MAKE IT STOP.”

(Nursey covertly takes a picture of Dex’s purple face during that one. His veins are very impressive.)

When the movie ends, Dex is giggling deliriously, rolling around on the bed. Nursey has never seen Dex like this, slightly off his rocker, cheeks flushed from the frenzy.

“So,” Nursey starts, after Dex seems to have calmed down a bit, “did you like it?”

Dex tackles him again.

They end up spending the rest of the evening processing the movie. Dex seems kind of stunned that it exists, and his incredulousness endlessly entertaining. He just keeps shaking his head and asking, “but how could anyone make this movie?!”

Nursey goes to bed with his heart lighter than it has been in weeks. He’s never realized how fun hanging out with Dex is; they’ve always hung out with Chowder, or the team, and Nursey supposes he didn’t realize how much Dex has changed since freshman year. He thinks helping Dex get over Chowder might be a pretty good time.

***

Nursey finds, however, that getting Dex to do stuff with him is more challenging than anticipated. Nursey tries to get Dex to watch another movie, or play Smash, or go to a queer student party with him. He even gets rejected when he asks Dex if they can hang out and do an extra skate together. Every single time, Dex says he’s too busy, but maybe he’ll have time tomorrow.

Eventually, Nursey corners him in their room. “Dex, every day for like a week I have asked if you want to hang out. Every single time, you say, ‘try again tomorrow.’ What the fuck is up? Are you mad at me or something?”

Dex stares at the floor. “I’m not mad at you, Nursey.”

“Then what? I don’t get it.”

He keeps staring at the hardwood. “It’s nothing. I’ll figure it out.”

“Okay, so it’s something that needs to get figured out? Is it the Chowder thing? Because you can talk to me, you know?”

Dex’s hands ball up into fists by his side, and he grits out, “It’s not the Chowder thing! It’s just—comp sci homework is hard.” He finally looks up, his cheeks red, already looking like he regrets saying it.

Nursey was not expecting that. He stares at Dex for a moment, and Dex looks away. “Never mind. Don’t worry about it, Nursey.”

“Hey, hey, hey—no way. So, all this time, you’ve just been doing your comp sci homework?”

“Yeah, well I’m not a fucking English major who only has to read for class—”

“Shut up. I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s not going to work.” Dex is trying to piss him off to distract him. Nursey recognizes it because he used to do it to Dex all the time. “Are your classes that bad this semester?” Nursey says more softly.

Dex stares at him for a long time with an unreadable look; then he shrugs and says to his feet, “They’re mostly the same except for one kinda bad one, but this time—well, this time I have to do it alone.”

“Bro, that sucks. Is there any way I can help?”

Dex looks at him again, seeming nonplussed. “Help?”

“Yeah. As in, offering aid. Lending a hand. Providing succor.”

Dex shoves at his shoulder. “Shut up.” He pauses for a moment, looking over Nursey’s shoulder, then asks quietly, “Would you mind, um, like, listening?”

“Listening?”

“Yeah, like, just hang out and listen?”

“Uh, yeah—what do you want me to listen to?”

“It really helps me to explain my code to someone—would you mind?”

Nursey gives his biggest grin and settles down onto his bunk. “‘Course. Tell me about it. Give me the coding 411, Dexy boy.”

Dex rolls his eyes, but he sits down and pulls out his laptop. “Okay, so for homework this week in 181, we have to parse a random string of words…”

Nursey listens as Dex carefully describes his code, outlining his whole approach to the problem, then talking Nursey through the method, as if he were also a comp sci major. Nursey occasionally asks questions, but Dex answers them fully, without even chirping him for asking. Occasionally, Dex stops in the middle of an explanation to say, “Shit, that doesn’t make any sense, gotta write a note,” before he continues on to the next part. The whole thing is surprisingly understandable. More coherent than some of the essays people have described to him over the years.

When he gets to the end of the assignment, Dex sighs and sags into his chair with his eyes closed. “Thanks, Nursey. That helped a lot.” He sounds exhausted.

“Of course, bro. It’s chill. We can make this a regular thing, if you want.”

Dex’s eyes kind of bug out. “Really? You’d do that?”

“Yeah, just let me know.”

“That’s not fair; you should get paid for your time. You could be doing your own work right now”

Nursey can’t exactly say, _you’re paying me by helping me get over our best friend_ , so instead he says, “Okay, well, in exchange, you have to listen to me whenever I need to talk about an essay. Deal?”

Dex raises an eyebrow. “You sure about that? I’m not an English major.”

Nursey smiles back at him. “But you’re a pretty good arguer. I’d know.”

“If you say so,” Dex says doubtfully, “but okay. You have a deal.”

They shake on it. Nursey fist pumps internally and leans over his bed to reach for his backpack. “I’m just going to chill and read. Let me know if you need my ears.”

Dex smirks, and replies, “Will do.”

***

The deal ends up being extremely fruitful. He listens to Dex describe his code every couple of days, and Dex finally has some free time. They start watching _Stranger Things_ together (Dex yells at all the jump scares—it’s pretty funny.) Dex is actually really great to talk to about essays. He’s a good listener, and he asks interesting questions.

They develop a kind of nice rhythm of hanging out and working together, and one day, not too long after he first time Nursey helps Dex with his homework, Nursey gets a text while he’s chilling with the writing crew in Day’s room, _can you listen to some code? struggling_

He looks down at the page that is, theoretically, becoming a poem; he hasn’t been making a lot of progress, so he might as well head out. He taps Day’s shoulder to warn them to raise their head from his knee. “Hey, I’m gonna go help Dex with coding stuff. We’re having another write’n’chill on Tuesday though, right?” He slides off of Day’s floral comforter and starts packing up his bag.

Eun Ae’s head pops up from inside her ball of blankets under their desk, “Wait, Derek, don’t go! You have to stay for editing! I’m almost done with this chapter.”

“Dex is calling for help, and I’m getting nowhere.”

“Then tell him to come here!”

Day suddenly has a look of glowing delight. “Ooh, can we meet the strange and mysterious Dex? I am _so_ curious.”

“You want me to tell Dex to come here? To your apartment?”

“If you promise he really is now only a former Republican, then yes,” replies Day.

“Okay. If you’re sure, I’ll ask him.” He texts back to Dex, _Want to come chill with the writing folk? They don’t want me to leave._

_k? where?_

Nursey texts back the address then climbs back onto Day’s bed and mindlessly strokes their hair as he tries to figure out his next stanza. He gets few pretty crappy lines down before his phone buzzes. “Dex is here.”

Day jumps up. “I’ll get him. Brb.” When they return to the bedroom, they have a Cheshire cat smile and Dex is following, glowing like the setting sun.

Dex excuses himself to get water from the kitchenette, and as soon as he’s gone Nursey hisses at Day, “What did you do to him?”

They shrug, too-innocent, and stage whisper, “He told me he was your ‘D’ man, and I asked him what that entailed.”

Eun Ae and Chamarie break into silent laughter. Nursey swats Day’s head. “You’re the worst.”

They stick out their tongue at him and curl up on his knee again.

When Dex returns, he whispers just loud enough to be heard over the Erykah Badu album Chamarie put on, “If you guys are still working, I can do stuff until you take a break.”

Chamarie checks her phone. “We have half an hour until we break for editing.”

Dex nods and settles onto the floor by the door. It’s kind of surreal, having Dex here with his creative writing friends, here in Day’s aesthetic apartment with the gentle lighting and their watercolor paintings, but after a couple of songs on the playlist, he forgets about it in the frustration of searching the thesaurus for a word he can’t remember.

When Chamarie’s phone sings, Eun Ae slams her laptop closed. “Fucking finally, I was so close to killing this fucker, you would not believe.”

Chamarie smiles and starts chirping her, but Dex walks briskly across the room toward Nursey. But, instead of talking to Nursey, he taps Day’s shoulder. When they sit up, Dex whispers something into their ear. They nod, and Dex turns and walks briskly out of the room.

“What’s up with Dex?” Nursey asks.

Day shrugs. “He asked if he could make us snacks. Who am I to refuse?”

They talk through Eun Ae’s protagonist troubles, and Chamarie shares the newest scene of her play, so they end up discuss the merits of heightened versus naturalistic dialogue. Day reads them a new draft of a poem they’ve been working on, and they offer comments. Nursey shares a poem he finished last night, and they all seem to like it, which is a relief.

When they’ve all finished discussing Nursey’s poem, Dex pokes his head back in. “You guys all done?”

Day smiles at him. “Yeah, whatcha got?”

Dex walks through the door laden with chocolate chip scones, and Chamarie attacks him. “Oh my God,” she moans through a mouthful of scone, “these are so good.” Dex seems a little stunned, but the rest of them just laugh.

“Don’t worry, giant hockey man,” Eun Ae giggles as she grabs a scone from him, “she might look like a model, but our Chamarie loves her food. I’m Eun Ae, by the way.” She holds out her hand, and Dex shakes it.

“Hi Eun Ae, I’m Will.”

She grins and glances back at Nursey. “We’ve heard.”

Predictably, Dex blushes, and Day and Eun Ae laugh. Chamarie grins and stands to shake his hand. “I’m Chamarie. Like if you put ‘Shah,’ as in the Shah of Persia, and “Marie,” as in Marie Antoinette, together. Chamarie.”

“Cha-marie?” he asks. She nods. “Nice to meet you, Chamarie.” It is a testament to how much Dex has listened to members of SMH rant about people mispronouncing their names that he double checks.

When everyone’s has a couple scones on hand, Dex sidles up to Nursey and pulls out his laptop to start explaining his code. However almost as soon as he starts talking, Chamarie, apparently softened by food, magnanimously invites him to share with the room, and suddenly everyone is listening to Dex’s code.

If Nursey thought about it too hard, he would probably think it was a kind of bizarre vibe, a roomful of English majors helping a comp sci major with his homework. But, Chamarie is a physics-English double major, and she is actually able to help him a lot. Day and Eun Ae just mock his naming system:

“Why is it called levSys14?” “Well, it’s the fourteenth year of the levy data.” “You should call it Isolde; it is in love with your professor, Tristan.” “I will take that into consideration.”

After they finish hearing out Dex’s code, they write for another hour, though this time Eun Ae uses Dex’s shoulders as footrests.

***

Samwell this October is more gorgeous than Nursey’s ever seen it before. The trees glow like they were stained by summer sunsets, and the sun itself is a burnished golden coin in the blue, blue sky. The air smells constantly of distant, delicious smoke, and the air is sweetly cool.

The beautiful weather seems to bring him luck—his poetry is finally improving, his thoughts are hardly ever dark, and he is actually able to get Dex to hang out with him. He even gets Dex to come chill with the writing crew a few more times (Chamarie is a big fan of the baked goods, and Dex is a big fan of her coding knowledge).

The first couple times Dex hangs with the writing crew, he always finds an excuse to be out of the room during editing breaks. Nursey thinks little of it until one day Dex asks if he can listen to their work. Dex ducks out while the crew has a brief discussion of whether they’re comfortable having him listen to their writing. They conclude that they are, and Day drags him back into their room from the kitchenette. Then Day makes him listen to their coding poem, “inspired by all your computer nonsense.”

After that, it settles into a pretty normal editing session. Dex doesn’t really offer any comments; he just listens, but Nursey is strangely nervous to have him hear his work. He’s hardly ever shared his poetry with members of SMH, and he’s never shared any of it with Dex. But, he did just agree to this, so when it comes his turn, he reads aloud his poem, keeping his eyes stuck firmly to the paper. When he’s finished, he glances over at Dex as subtly as possible. Dex’s eyebrows seem slightly raised, but his face is otherwise blank, which is not an expression Nursey understands. Did his poem offend Dex somehow? Is it that awful? Or is he just seeing things?

On their way back to the Haus afterward, Nursey keeps glancing over at Dex, trying to see if he can decipher what the hell Dex’s reaction meant. But Dex is being his usual quiet self, and eventually Nursey has to straight up ask, “So, did you like hearing our writing?”

Dex nods. “Yeah, it was great. They’re all really talented.”

 _They’re all really talented._ What the hell does that mean? Is Nursey not talented?

“Well, um, did you like my poem?”

Dex clears his throat, and replies, “Oh, yeah, definitely.”

Nursey can’t keep the grin off his face. “Really? You thought it was good?”

Dex glances over at him, his eyebrows knit together. “Of course I thought it was good! It was amazing. You’re—” he stops short and clears his throat again. “It’s a really great poem, Nurse.”

Nursey thinks he can see, even in the dark, that Dex’s cheeks are slightly darker. He laughs, “Dex, you’re such a fucking dork. We’ve gotta teach you how to talk about writing soon. You can’t get all tongue-tied every time you talk about a poem.”

Dex breathes a laugh. “Yeah, sounds good.”

Nursey’s chest is warm with relief. Dex liked his poem; Dex doesn’t think he sucks at writing. Nursey gazes up at the warm October moon and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: dissociation, homophobia mention


	3. Chapter 3

Dex checks the list again and yells, “Wait, Chowder, five dozen instead.”

Chowder stares back at him, “What are we going to do with five dozen eggs?!”

“The custard for the ice cream needs a lot of eggs, plus popovers, eggnog, and eight separate pies…”

“I got the picture. Five dozen eggs.” Chowder shakes his head and heads off to the dairy aisle.

Dex resumes his analysis of the squash. He needs to pick good ones because if his squash is anything less than perfect, Bitty will stick his nose up and declare that he was right all along about squash at Thanksgiving. He’ll probably use it as an excuse to not even try Dex’s homemade cranberry sauce and stick to the canned shit.

Dex eventually extracts three flawless squashes, and a moment after he puts them into the cart, Chowder returns with the eggs.

“I got extra large, is that okay?”

“Yeah. Did you check them for cracks?”

“‘Course! I know how to fucking grocery shop.”

They head next to the baking aisle and start pulling huge amounts of sugar and flour off the shelves. When they’ve finished, the cart is stuffed. “Anything else?” Chowder asks him.

“Just chips’n’dip.”

“Only one bag of barbecue, okay Dexy?”

“From the man who bought us chicken and waffles flavored chips three separate times?”

“They’re delicious!”

“They’re fucking weird.”

The two of them are  walking down the snack food aisle when Dex feels a tap on his shoulder. He looks over, and Chowder is watching him nervously. “What’s up, C?”

“Can we talk serious for a second, Dex?”

“Yeah, of course. What do you want to talk about?”

Chowder has his eyebrows drawn together in his sad-puppy face, and he asks quietly, “Are we cool? Like, are we best friends again?”

Dex’s heart hurts, and he feels guilty again. There had been a long time when he couldn’t really see Chowder outside of practice without getting this sick feeling in his stomach, so he’d avoided him like Nursey had told him to. Which was probably a good idea, honestly, but over the past couple weeks Dex had been testing the waters and hanging out with Chowder more, to see if he’d figured out his feelings. But it had all probably been really weird for Chowder.

Dex nods. “Yeah, I think we are.”

Chowder’s grins and tackles him in a bear hug. “Dexy! Oh my God, I am so happy! I’ve missed hanging out with you so much.”

Dex hugs him back, and he can feel prickles in his eyes. “I missed you, too, bro.” He hadn’t realized how much he missed Chowder hugs.

Chowder pulls away and looks him in the eye. “You’re sure, right? I’m not, like, torturing you or something?”

“No! I wouldn’t lie to you, Chris Chow.”

Chowder grins. “Wanna work on 181 homework tonight?”

“Please. Please please please.”

Chowder laughs, and they pick out the chips and head to the register. As Dex counts out the money he grabbed from the Sin Bin, he listens to Chowder describe last night’s Sharks game and is overwhelmed with relief. Things might finally be returning to normal.

***

It’s even better the next day, when Dex and Chowder and Nursey are chilling in the kitchen, talking over possible Winter Screw dates for the Waffles. Dex and Chowder are chopping vegetables, and Nursey is drinking tea and staying far away from sharp objects.

“Okay,” starts Nursey in his ‘I have just fallen in love with my own stupid idea’ voice, “What about Bully and Ryan Callahan from the rugby team?”

“Are you kidding me Nurse?” Dex replies as he chops a carrot. “The date will happen in total silence. Bully needs a talker.”

“No, no, no, Dexy. You’re missing the point. Bully just communicates differently with people. He needs someone who understands him without needing to speak. And he’ll understand Ryan! And they’ll understand him!”

Chowder glances back over his shoulder at Nursey. “That’s a long shot, even for you.”

Nursey pouts and pulls his heels onto his chair to hug his legs with the arm that isn’t holding his tea. Somewhere in the back of his brain, Dex registers that it’s adorable, but then he tells that part of his brain to shut up, and he moves on to chopping celery.

Then Nursey perks up. “Okay, okay, if Ryan Callahan is out, how about Romaana Shirazi? We should have more SMH/SWH relationships happening anyway, and I know for a fact she likes him.”

Chowder raises an eyebrow and asks, “Like, likes him or like-likes him?”

Dex raises his eyes from the celery to give Chowder a scathing look. “Are we actually in the seventh grade right now?”

Chowder shoots right back, “According to your B.O., the answer is yes.”

Dex throws the carrot greens in Chowder’s face. “You’re a dick.”

“You’re a smelly dick.”

Nursey raises his hands to stop them. “Okay, can we not? We’re doing serious business! Romaana Shirazi! Yay, nay?

“I like her, and I think they’d have fun. I vote yay!” says Chowder.

Dex nods, and once they determine that Nursey will arrange Bully and Shirazi’s date, the topic shifts to Hops. They listen to Chowder describe the ideal qualities in a date for Hops, (“…he likes long hair, and I think we want a gentle soul for our Hopsy…”) and Dex appreciates how amazing it is to be able to just hang out with Nursey and Chowder again. It feels like old times, before the soulmate fiasco. Everything is so good.

Well, everything except the niggling voice at the back of his head that notices stuff like how Nursey has his nails painted a deep, purple, eggplant-y color and the way his long, long eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks. But Dex is not going down that road again, so he reminds that voice that he told it to shut up just five minutes ago and focuses on brainstorming dates for Hops. There’s a really nice girl who’s been showing up to his office hours for a CS class he’s TA-ing who he thinks is just right.

***

Dex spends Thanksgiving morning desperately cooking the last ten things he forgot as Bitty churns out pies next to him. At one point Nursey saunters in to make coffee, and they just push him out of the kitchen altogether.

“Why can’t I make coffee?! I do it all the time!”

“Having you in here gives me agita! Remember the time you slipped on a scrambled egg and nearly got a concussion?” Dex shouts back, “I’ll be making your coffee.”

Nursey rolls his eyes and lies down on the couch. “I guess I’ll just lie here and develop a headache until you bring me my coffee.”

“You do that!”

Dex sets the coffee pot to go again (he and Bitty have already gone through a pot this morning) and returns to boiling the potatoes. When the coffee’s done, Dex fills up a cup and adds cream, a generous spoonful of hot chocolate mix, and some extra crumbs of vanilla bean that Bitty has lying out before he brings it to Nursey.

“Here you go you dingus,” Dex says as he places the mug on the coffee table.

“Thank you, high and mighty William of clan Poindexter. I am honored.”

Dex heads back toward the kitchen and is nearly to the stove when he gets tackled from behind; it is only years of hockey training that keep him on his feet and out of the pots of boiling water. He assumes it’s Chowder, but when he turns his head, it’s Nursey who’s wrapped around his back.

“What the fuck, Nurse?! That was so dangerous!”

“Dexy, that coffee is delicious! What did you do to it?”

“I put hot chocolate and vanilla in it. Now get out of the kitchen!” Maybe if Dex stays angry, Nursey won’t notice he’s blushing from being hugged by the famously attractive, presently shirtless Derek Nurse.

“Okay grumpy, but I know you care! You put hot chocolate in my coffee!” he jokes and heads back to the couch.

Dex turns back to the potatoes and notices that Bitty is staring at him. When their eyes meet, Bitty raises an eyebrow.

Dex grimaces. “Shut up.”

Bitty snorts and just says, “Vanilla bean? In his coffee? Wow, honey, wow,” then turns back to smirk at his second pumpkin pie.

Dex ignores him.

***

Thanksgiving dinner is a triumph. Jack, Tater, and a few Falconers rookies come eat with the team. Louis is psyched to be able to talk to another Swede, and he and Öberg chat for the whole meal. Bitty’s pies are roundly applauded, though Tater bemoans the fact that there are only eight of them.

Dex himself is secretly pleased that he gets to have all his favorite Thanksgiving foods, instead of only the things Bitty likes for Thanksgiving, and it seems like his cooking is going over well. Bully seems fairly satisfied with Dex’s version of the green bean casserole recipe that Bully’s grandmother sent over. Bitty even cedes that homemade cranberry sauce is a better food than canned cranberry sauce, though he still prefers canned “for sentimental reasons, you understand.”

He sits between Chowder and Nursey and mostly listens to the conversation. He gets Chowder to update him on all the comp sci gossip that he’s missed, and all in all it’s a pretty normal SMH Thanksgiving, except he keeps getting distracted by Nursey.

Ever since he and Nursey started hanging out more, Nursey has been a lot more cuddly with him. Nursey likes to ruffle his fingers in Dex’s hair when he chirps him and grab Dex’s wrist when he wants him to listen to something and put an arm around Dex’s shoulder when he talks just to him.

Which is fine. Nursey is generally cuddly with his closest friends: Chowder and Chamarie and Bitty and Ford and Day and Eun Ae. And it’s not as though Dex dislikes it. Usually he doesn’t even notice.

Now, though, sitting in the living room on a folding chair for hours on end as Nursey continually touches him—sometimes just a brush of his elbow, later (when the food coma sets in) setting up camp on Dex’s shoulder—he can’t stop noticing.

It’s really frustrating; he keeps trying to tell himself to snap out of it, but five minutes later he’s always fixating on Nursey again. Finally, he’s able to make his escape when they turn on Thanksgiving football, and he tells Chowder and Nursey that he needs to Skype his family.

Once Dex opens up Skype, he finds the whole Kelly clan standing in Uncle Dan and Aunt Tammy’s living room. He says hi to his uncles and aunts and cousins, checking up on them all, apologizing at least five times for having to be away for Thanksgiving. As usual, they jibe him for going to “some fancy school in Massachusetts” and tell him his hair looks terrible.

Eventually, when all his relatives have taken their turn, his family huddles up around the laptop. “Hi Mom, hi Ellie, hi Mya, hi Davey.”

“Hi honey! How was your Thanksgiving dinner? How did grandma’s potato recipe go?”

“It was great, Mom. I’m actually kind of sad they liked it so much—no leftovers.”

“That’s a shame.”

Davey leans down to the camera and says, “Hey, Billy! How’s the season going?”

“Pretty good. The freshmen are a really strong group.”

His brother gives him a grin. “Yeah, yeah, but how do you like first line?”

Dex laughs. “It’s pretty great.”

Myra pulls on Davey’s sleeve. “Are you done, yet?”

“I’ve said two words to him!”

“Call him on your own time!”

Davey sighs and waves goodbye to the camera. Myra picks up the laptop—Uncle Dan’s work laptop, Dex thinks—and starts moving it. His whole family starts chorusing goodbye and suddenly the screen turns dark, and he can only see a faint silhouette of his sister.

“What is going on, Mya?!”

Suddenly, the screen lights up and Myra and Ellie are hunched over the laptop in another room. The guest room, he thinks—he recognizes that quilt.

Mya rests her chin on her hands and says solemnly, “Billy, we have to talk to you about something kind of serious.”

His heart sinks. “Is it about Dad?”

Ellie shakes her head. “No, nothing like that.”

“Though Davey talked to him on the phone earlier today,” Myra says with a sour look on her face.

He has to laugh at that. “You’re a sweetie, My-my.”

She smiles, and suddenly her eyes turn mischievous. “But we still have something important to ask you.”

What could they possibly want to know?

Ellie gives a leisurely smile and asks oh-so-casually, “Are you dating Derek Nurse?”

He nearly chokes on air and falls off his chair. The girls break into laughter, and he clambers back onto his chair to give them the evil eye. “What?! Of course I’m not dating Derek Nurse! Where the hell did you get that idea?”

Ellie raises an eyebrow at him. “Well, eight of the past ten snaps you’ve sent me had Derek in them. And you made an Instagram post with him in wicked good lighting. He looked so pretty.”

Dex’s brain seems to be working in slow motion. He vaguely recalls doing those things, but they had seemed spontaneous in the moment. He hardly thought his Nursey thing was anywhere near that bad.

Ellie and Myra are just watching him and giggling. He really can’t think of anything to say. If they can figure it out, what if Nursey finds out?

Well, that’s unacceptable. Dex won’t let it happen.

“The family all think he’s very handsome,” says Mya conversationally.

“YOU TOLD EVERYBODY?! What did you say to them?” He cannot believe these girls; they are trying to ruin his life.

“Don’t worry, you big lug,” Ellie replies, “we just told them you were sweet on a guy on the hockey team. And showed them his Instagram.”

He buries his face in his hands. This cannot be happening.

Mya pipes up, “He takes great selfies!”

“Great taste in filters,” Ellie continues. He can hear her smug smile. They are trying to torture him.

He looks up from his hands. “I am not anything with Derek Nurse, okay? And please tell the family. I can’t deal with them freaking out—”

“They’re not freaking out!” Mya interrupts him, “They’re really excited. They want to meet him!”

Dex is torn between anxiety and a strange creeping excitement. He’s breathing kind of heavily, and he takes a moment to slow down and try to understand what his sisters are saying to him. The family is happy about the idea of him having a crush on a _boy_.

“Really? They’re okay with it?” His mother took on most of the work of telling the family, and she’d told Dex they’d all been fine with it, but it’s kind of amazing to hear proof that they actually feel that way.

Ellie smiles at him, sincerely this time. “Yeah, Will. They are. They made us Facebook stalk him on their behalf.”

He can’t really believe it. His family, even his old-fashioned fishermen uncles, are happy for him to be interested in a boy. They wanted to know more about a boy he likes. His chest feels tight. He loves them so much. He should build Aunt Shannon that fancy set of shelves she’s been wanting.

Then the last thing Ellie said hits him. Something cold seems to drop in his stomach. The voice in his head that sounds like Shitty is yelling at him. “Um, what did you tell them about Nursey?”

Myra shrugs. “He’s an English major, he writes poetry. The stuff we found on Facebook and Instagram.”

“Did you tell them that he’s Muslim?” His jaw is tight.

“Yeah, of course.” She doesn’t seem to understand why this is so important.

“And what did they say?!” he asks, maybe too forcefully. Myra looks a little nervous. Shit. He’s scaring her. Of course she doesn’t understand. She’s fourteen. She’s still in Maine. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so mean, I just—just tell me what they said.”

“They didn’t say anything! It was just, like, a thing. And we moved on.”

He doesn’t really know what that means. And he’s not sure why he’s worrying so much. He and Nursey will never be a thing. Nursey meeting his extended family will never be a thing. Does it really matter if his family wouldn’t accept him dating a Muslim boy?

It really does matter, even if he doesn’t want to confess to himself why. He could never bring Nursey to his family if there was a shadow of a chance that they would hurt Nursey. And even if dating him is a complete impossibility, Dex doesn’t want the reason it’s impossible to be that his family is shitty.

Ellie interjects, “That’s not quite right. Uncle Phil is nervous about him seeming kind of religious...” His stomach sinks with horror. “...because he thinks he might be like Dad.”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense. We’re Catholic.”

She shrugs. Dex has no idea what hell this means. He buries is face in his hands again. His instincts are telling him that he doesn’t have any instincts about this stuff, two years of Samwell notwithstanding. Another reason Nursey should never date him. He’s an idiot about this stuff. At least he’s learned that much at Samwell.

He sighs. “Girls, thanks for talking to me. Give my love to the family. I need to go back down to help clean up dinner.”

They look a little nervous, but they smile. “Okay Billy,” says Mya, “you know we love you right?”

He loves her so much. “I love you Myra Kathleen. I love you, Elizabeth Irene.”

“Love you, Billy,” replies Ellie.

They say their last goodbyes, and Dex closes his laptop and sags against his chair. What the fuck is happening to him? His family is excited for him to date boys. So that’s good. His family is a bunch of bad Catholics from Maine whose circle is mostly Irish and contains exactly one Indian family. That’s not so good.

All he can think about is this poem that Nursey had dog-eared in a book of poetry he left on his desk. Dex read it because Nursey had told him to read his poetry books, “so you can actually talk about poetry sometimes.” The poem was about being Muslim and being afraid.

He thinks he’s made Nursey afraid before. Nursey has never told him so, but he’s not an idiot. He’s been an asshole in every possible way to Derek Nurse.

He imagines some idiot bringing Derek Nurse to their prejudiced family and making Nursey afraid. He can already feel the fight rising in his blood; he wants to punch their imaginary face.

Well, just another reason to quash his Nursey crush. He can’t punch himself.

When his breath has really calmed down, he heads back downstairs to help clean the dishes. He arrives at just the right time: Louis is halfway to convincing Tango to let him spin plates on a chopstick “for science.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Mentions of Islamophobia


	4. Chapter 4

“Damn, Dexy you look fine!” Cait cries out, smacking her bag against his ass.

Nursey’s watches Dex immediately turn a brilliant shade of red, and a beautiful chain reaction starts as Dex reflexively grabs at his ass, then loses his balance. He grabs at the toilet paper dispenser, sending the toilet paper flying. Then he lands on the toilet with a bang, draped in toilet paper and scowling. Nursey laughs so hard he nearly puts mascara in his eyebrows.

Ever-cool Chamarie merely glances away from the mirror where she’s doing her lashes and nods appreciatively. “You clean up pretty well, Will. Blue is your color.”

Chowder recovers and tearfully follows up, “Yeah, Dexy, you look so good. This suit is really excellent. The toilet paper is a nice touch.”

Dex has his face buried in his hands, but Nursey hears him mumble, “Fuck you.”

When he can control his laughter, Nursey pats Dex’s hair and says consolingly, “You do look nice, Dexy-poo. Maybe if you acquire some chill between now and the dance, Mr. Diving Team will be interested in Winter Screwing you, even if you’re wearing a toilet paper scarf.”

Dex looks daggers at him and hides his face in his hands again. Nursey shares a grin with Chowder and returns to smoothing down his baby hairs. A moment later, Chowder’s face appears above his shoulder. “Bro, can I use your razor?”

“Uh-huh.”

Chowder doesn’t move away yet, looking at him in the mirror. “Nursey, you are way too pretty. I kind of hate you.” Nursey says a quick _Alhamdulillah_ for the fact that his Chowder-crush has cooled way down, if only for the sake of his baby hairs.

Behind him, Caitlyn chimes in, “Same. Also, you need to teach me to do a cat eye sometime, Derek. I am so jealous.”

He finishes his hair and turns to her. “It’s all about the brush, darling.”

“Ooooh, tell me more Make Up Master.”

“Derek,” Chamarie chides as she pokes at her lipstick, “you better not get snatched up before I get in my allotted dancing time.”

Life for a stunningly beautiful aro-ace Amazon who loves to dance is tough. Nursey is accompanying Chamarie to Winter Screw in order to both fend off the rabid pack of horny college kids who gather in her wake and provide a partner with the stamina to dance late into the night. “Of course. I would never abandon my dancing queen,” he replies.

Chamarie flashes a smile in the mirror and turns to him. “How do I look? Anything I forgot?”

Nursey gives her a head-to-toe. She is a vision in a gold dress and Bantu knots, her dark skin glowing with golden shimmer. “Flawless. You are way too pretty for us mere mortals. Also, do you have any of that body shimmer left?”

“I think?” She digs into her make up bag and pulls out a small bottle. “Be careful—I made this myself.”

“Thanks, love.” He turns back to the mirror and opens the little bottle, but it’s a little awkwardly shaped and suddenly it’s flying out of his hands. He lunges for it, but he feels his knuckles knocking it further through the air. He doesn’t know what’s happened until he hears: “Fuck!”

Nursey looks over—Dex is grabbing at his head. Nursey can see the bottle wedged under Dex’s  fingers. Dex slams the bottle of shimmer on the sink, and jumps up but the damage is done; there’s gold liquid pooling on his head and starting to drip down toward his ears. Dex scrabbles at his head and yells, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, my suit!” Cait grabs at a towel and throws it at Dex mop at his hair, but before towel hits him, Dex just sticks his hands in and musses it, mixing the shimmer in down to his roots. “Dammit, Nursey, what the fuck.”

“Sorry!”

Dex rolls his eyes and turns to the others to ask, “How does it look?” Apparently he has been excommunicated from the body shimmer discussion.

Cait shrugs. “Can’t really see it.”

Chowder nods. “Same.”

Chamarie raises a judgmental eyebrow at Nursey and picks up the little bottle. “You are a menace.”

“I’m sorry!” Nursey groans. “Am I banned from using your products forever?”

Her mouth quirks. “Poor baby. You’re not banned, but I think I have to put it on you.”

She pours some into her hand, and Nursey holds still as she spreads it over his cheekbones.

When she’s finished, Nursey pulls on his jacket to check himself out in the mirror one last time, and Caitlyn gives a soft wolf whistle, “Nursey, you are in peak form.”

He looks pretty fucking good. The body shimmer is beautiful, his eyeliner is killer and he’s got his favorite suit on—the insane tux his mothers got him for his 21stbirthday, a Cifonelli with black pants and a hot pink velvet jacket. He even gave himself French tips for the occasion.

Chamarie drapes herself over his shoulders. “Hey pretty boy, if you’re done staring at yourself, you ready to go downstairs?”

“You’re the worst. Yes, I’m ready.”

They meet Bitty and Jack and Ollie and Wicky downstairs, and while everyone else is pre-gaming, he and Jack do their usual Instagram scroll-through critique session. Jack is terrible at social media, but his private Insta is pretty gorgeous, and they trade tips. Jack thinks he needs to vary his selfie composition a little bit more, which is reasonable, and Nursey tells him once again that non-Canadians do not understand his geese thing. Jack disregards him as usual, but he seems into his suggestions about using a smaller depth of field to create an air of intimacy in his photos of Bitty. Nursey’s pretty sure that Jack’s main goal in photography is to produce the most perfect photo of Eric Richard Bittle possible to humankind, and Nursey feels honored to aid in Jack Zimmermann’s life’s work.

When the crew has successfully made themselves tipsy, Bitty declares that it’s time to go to the party, and he opens the door to lead them boldly outside. Then he remembers he hasn’t put on a coat and yelps. He slams the door closed, and they all and mock him as they pull on their coats, and Jack gets fined four separate times as he sneakily tries to “warm Bitty up.”

Fully bundled, they head over, chatting idly—he listens to Chamarie describe her play to Wicky, who is a sometimes-playwright himself, until he hears Chowder somewhere to his left saying, “Dex, are you alright?” Nursey’s ears prick up, and he drifts strategically over to walk on Chowder’s other side.

He only catches Dex saying, “…nervous, you know?”

Chowder nods and comforts him, “You’re gonna be fine. He seems like a great guy.”

“Yeah, I just–” Dex pauses, seemingly at loss for words. Then he looks up and catches Nursey’s eye and clears his throat. “You never know right?” Dex stares at his feet.

Chowder glances at Nursey, brow knit with concern. Nursey shrugs helplessly. He’s not sure why Dex is stressing about a one-off date, but he supposes the pressure to hit it off is pretty high at Winter Screw. The three of them walk together the rest of the way, but Nursey can’t divine anything else about what’s wrong with Dex. There is definitely something up, though. Dex is even more quiet than usual, and he has that mildly constipated look he gets when he’s worried about something.

Once they arrive, Nursey gets caught up in the energy of the party. He checks in on all the Waffles and gives each of their dates a glowing review of their personality and a few suggested conversation topics to help keep things going. Then Chamarie drags him onto the dance floor. They find Day and their date and Nursey blocks out the rest of the world to dance. He’s so lost in the music that he doesn’t even notice the couple next to him until one of them calls his name.

Nursey looks over to see Dex waving at him. Nursey waves back, and Dex gives him a little smile before turning to face his dance partner again. Nursey doesn’t really notice anything about Dex’s date because Dex’s hair is shining so hypnotically, he can’t look away. Chamarie’s shimmer makes every bounce of his hair look like a lick of golden fire.

Dex seems to feel Nursey’s gaze because Dex looks over at him again and raises an eyebrow. The shimmer has sweated down from his hair and is now glimmering atop his oversized ears and on the flush of his cheeks and in the bow of his lip. Nursey has sudden, mad urge to wipe away the gold on Dex’s mouth with his thumb.

Then he realizes he needs to do something, or else he’s just standing there, staring at Dex. He nods at Dex’s date and leans in to speak into Dex’s ear, “He’s hot.”

 _Subhan Allah_ , Dex smells like sandalwood.

Dex just nods and returns to his partner. Nursey shakes his head to clear his mind and tries to go back to dancing, but across from him, Chamarie is standing still and staring at him with a face of pure, transported delight. She grabs him by the wrist and tugs him through the multicolored, sparkling crowd. She moves so quickly and gracefully, people hardly know she’s gone past, but Nursey is pretty sure he’s stepped on some toes, and maybe spilled someone’s drink. When they’re out of the crowd, she claims a table by the door, far enough from the dance floor to talk over the music.

As soon as they’re seated, she grins at him wickedly and asks, “So, Derek. What was that?”

“What was what?” he replies haughtily.

She rolls her eyes at his pretense. “I think it’s pretty plain, Derek Malik, that I am talking about you nakedly lusting after a certain ginger we both know.”

He crosses his arms and leans back, refusing to acknowledge the pointed look she is giving him. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.

“Oh,” she says, and he thinks he’s got her beat. At least, he thinks so until she glances over his shoulder and continues, “I’m just talking about your defense partner who’s got Mason Killian feeling up his ass on the dance floor.”

Before he can stop himself, Nursey is twisting in his seat to look. Even through the crowd, he can see Dex, half a foot taller than anyone around him. Dex’s date is a short white guy who Nursey thinks might be a member of the swim team. The guy has one arm wrapped around his shoulders, his fingers playing with Dex’s shimmering hair, when the crowd shifts a little Nursey can see that the guy’s other hand is rested at the very bottom of Dex’s back. Nursey’s throat goes dry, and his face is suddenly warm. His heart is racing; he has a strange urge to walk right up to Dex and his date and do something drastic.

He tears his eyes away from the dance floor turns back to stare at Cha, who’s watching him expectantly. He opens his mouth to speak, but he doesn’t know what to say. What just happened? He glances over his shoulder again to see the short guy leaning up to say something in Dex’s ear, and Dex laughing at whatever he said. Nursey’s jaw tightens and suddenly he can’t fucking stand Mason Killian.

He looks down to stare at his manicure, trying to analyze what the hell is happening with his feelings. It’s a strange streak of anger mixed with an intense desire for _something_. He looks at his hands for at least a minute before realizing what it all means.

He’s jealous.

He looks up at Chamarie, who is watching him patiently like he’s a fascinating experimental specimen. “Cha,” he says, “this cannot be happening.”

“What?”

“I’m fucking jealous. Of Dex’s date.”

She looks at him, apparently torn between surprise and amusement. “Oh, you’re not like, _into him_ , are you?”

He shakes his head. “No, no, it’s just really weird. I’ve never thought about him like that.”

Chamarie nods understandingly and pats his hand consolingly. “Neither have I.”

Nursey swats at her outstretched arm and she pulls away, mock offended. “You’re not funny, Cha, you know that, right?”

“Liar. I am hilarious.”

He rolls his eyes at her and leans back in his chair to undo his bowtie, which has been choking him for the past few minutes.

Chamarie cocks her head and looks him over. “Are you okay, Derek?” she asks earnestly.

He pauses to try to think through what he’s feeling. How much of this is just built up horniness? It’s been a while since he hooked up, and Dex is a hot NCAA athlete. And the whole room is practically oozing hormones as everybody angles to get their date to hook up with them, and he has a strong track record of getting swept up by the emotions of people around him. The most likely explanation for this whole Dex thing is that his overactive libido just picked a close, convenient target for the evening.

“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks. I think it’s just, Winter Screw, you know?”

“No.” She grins. “But I believe you.”

He laughs and follows her back to the dance floor. They find Chowder and Cait and dance until their feet hurt. Nursey feels is relieved to find that Dex has already left, though he feels a little guilty about it. Still, the jealousy was pretty unsettling, and it’s nice not be distracted from dancing.

When Chamarie finally collapses into a chair, cursing her barking feet, she pushes Nursey toward the crowd, saying “I release you to satisfy your allosexual needs.”

He grins and kisses her hand like the dashing young man he is, then sets off for the hunt. He finds an old hook up hanging out just outside the dance floor, nursing a drink. They give Nursey a wolfish smile, and he follows them out into the cold and nearly forgets about his bizarre spate of jealousy for Dex.

***

Samwell is as pretty as a postcard when he leaves for the airport, but when he sees Manhattan outside the airplane window, he feels a profound sense of relief. He always feels tied down in those little towns, but here he can move and go anywhere he wants and eat food that isn’t from one of the five good restaurants in town, two of which are pizza places. He already feels freer, even though he is technically still stuck tight to an airplane seat.

Mom and Aisha are waiting for him at arrivals, holding a sign that reads “Baby Malik”. He weaves between people and runs over to gather up his mother and sister in his arms.

“ _As Salam Alaikum_!” he whispers to them.

He releases them, and Mom smiles up at him and replies, “ _Wa Alaikum Assalam._ You look so good, baby! I like this sweater.”

“Thanks, Mom. My friend Ford made it for me special.”

Aisha sticks her hand in his hair. “You need a haircut. Your fade is terrible.”

“You think I was going to get a haircut from someone in Samwell right before I came back to New York? Are you out of your mind? This place has actual barbershops.”

Aisha replies by grinning and mussing his hair, no doubt ruining the curls he carefully made this morning. He takes his vengeance by stealing her coffee from her hand and downing it in one go. She tries to grab it back from him, but she is a full head shorter than him, and he just holds it out of her reach.

“There are people here,” Mom says reprovingly. They stop and try to look guilty. Nursey hands back the coffee cup.

Aisha glances into it and then looks back at him aghast. “You little….”

But Mom pays no attention. She’s checking her phone, and she interrupts Aisha before she can really tear into him, “Your Mama should have your grandparents by now, and we need to beat them to the apartment before they get back from JFK, or we will get an earful.” He and Aisha stand up a little straighter. They are fully aware of their grandparents’ legendary abilities in the area of passive-aggression. “Derek, did you check anything?”

“Nope, just carry-on.”

Mom reaches up and gives him a kiss. “Smart boy. Let’s get you home.”

In the taxi from LaGuardia, he gets Aisha to tell him about medical school. She’s been too busy to Skype as much as they used to, and when they do she doesn’t want to talk about it. (“All I talk about here is medical school. Let me be a human being for half an hour.”) So he needs to pump her for information.

“Um, medical school sucks? I low-key hate everyone there?”

“You’ve told me this before. I want deets.”

Mom tucks a lock of Aisha’s hair back into her hijab and suggests, “Tell him about the girl in your patient interview class.”

“Oh my God, Derek, I do not know how this chick got into Johns Hopkins Medical, but I am afraid for her patients.”

He learns that, even at JHU, there are medical students who completely lack people skills, and that Aisha has a supernaturally good head for anatomy. (“They were all so jealous.”) She’s finally capitulated and started to drink coffee instead of just tea. (“I thought after graduating the University of Chicago with a degree in chemistry, I could do anything without coffee. I was wrong.”)

However, the most egregious revelation comes when they’re sitting in traffic in Harlem. Aisha is describing her and Musa’s apartment when she casually says, “and now that we have Troy, the couch has fur on it all the time.”

“Wait, wait, wait—‘now that we have Troy’?” He turns around and stares her down over the shoulder of his seat. “Did you get a dog?”

She gives him a scornful look. “Of course we didn’t get a dog. Musa just started his job and I am a first-year med student. We’re not stupid. We got a cat.”

He tries not to scream because his face is eight inches away from the taxi driver’s ear, but he squeals a little. “Show me pictures! Why haven’t you told me?”

Aisha pulls out her phone and starts showing him pictures of a gorgeous gray kitten curled up in her lap, in Musa’s shoes, in patches of sunlight, and on their laptop keyboards.

He’s just gotten to the end of the photos when the taxi pulls up outside their apartment. As they ride up the elevator, his mother nudges his shoulder and whispers, “Ask her who the cat is named for.”

“Mom!” Aisha groans.

Nursey thinks for a moment, and he laughs, “Ishee, did you name your cat after Troy Bolton from _High School Musical_?”

“You seem to forget I have pictures of you from seventh grade, so, watch yourself, little brother. Also,” she says as she leads them out of the elevator, “you asked why I didn’t tell you….”

She opens the apartment door, flicks on the lights, and immediately he notices cat toys strewn all around the living room.

“OH MY GOD! WHERE IS HE?”

Aisha and Mom are laughing at him, but he does not care. Aisha replies, “He’s in my room.

“Take your luggage!” Mom yells as he starts to run, and he grabs his carry-on and his backpack before he darts off. He takes a quick detour to throw his stuff in his bedroom, then sprints to Aisha’s and opens the door. In the dim glow from the setting sun, he can see a cat bed with a little furry lump curled up on top of it.

He feels Aisha appear behind him, her chin digging into his upper arm. He looks around at her, and she’s grinning at him. He whispers, “So precious!”

She pulls him by his arm to the living room. “Do you want to help take care of him while you’re home?”

“Um, duh? Wait, does this mean Musa’s here, too?”

She shakes her head. “No, he’s traveling.”

He pouts at her. “But I miss him!”

“But, he thinks it’ll give him enough leverage at the company to get Eid off. None of them want to do stuff over Christmas.”

“Eid is literally forever away.”

Mom sticks her head out of the dining room and raises her eyebrow. “Hey, I’m trying to set the table. Anyone feel like giving me a hand?”

They lay out the table settings, and when the Chinese delivery arrives, Nursey runs down to get it. Just as they’re finishing removing all the food from the boxes into nice plates and bowls, Mom’s phone buzzes.

He can see her tense slightly when she checks her phone. “Your grandparents are here.” He doesn’t think Mom dislikes her in-laws, but he’s pretty sure they stress her out. Which is fair; they stress him out, too.

Suddenly, shouts of “Merry Christmas!” are coming in from the hallway, and he and Aisha and Mom jog out to hug Waigong and Waipo.

As usual, Waipo holds him by his shoulders as she looks him up and down and proclaims, “So tall and so handsome!” and Waigong pats him on the shoulder as he says, “ _As Salam Alaikum_ ” as best he can.

Mama looks a little harried as she brings in more luggage behind them, but when she catches sight of him, she wraps him in a big hug and squeezes his ribs. “Hey, babe,” she says in his ear, “Glad to see you.”

“Glad to see you, too, Mama.”

He and Mama take the luggage into the guest room, and he tells her about the mysterious juice he drank on the plane that tasted like no fruit of this earth. She tells him that she nearly was late to pick up her parents because a multi-party arbitration hearing devolved into two long-time enemies screaming at each other. “So, in conclusion, I think I’m going to be breaking into the leftover Halloween candy later tonight, if you’d care to join me.”

“We still have Halloween candy?”

“Your mother is an optimist with a minor Kit Kat addiction. What can I say.”

Dinner is delicious (they got seafood stew, his fave), and he updates Waigong and Waipo about his classes, but he lets his parents and Aisha do most of the talking. Whenever he goes home, he likes to revel in the feeling of being with his family; it’s like being in the warmest, most sweetly scented bath. His sister describes med school again, this time carefully explaining what each of the classes is about to their grandparents. His parents discuss how work has been. Mama talks about the new young lawyer who keeps accidentally offending judges, and Mom relates an incident in which one of the gallery’s artists used a super-flammable medium without telling anyone and left it touching a light bulb in the showroom. It’s nothing particularly different from every other visit from his grandparents, but it’s wonderfully homey.

After Waigong and Waipo head to bed, the four of them curl up on the couch together and watch the fireplace.

Mama kisses all their heads as she pours them chamomile. “A successful dinner with my parents. Go team.”

“Go team,” says Mom sleepily from her place squished between him and Aisha.

“Did you have a long day, too, Zai?”

“I’m sleeping on my babies. Don’t wake me.”

“That doesn’t sound very safe.”

“They’re big babies. Leave me alone, Cassandra Wu. I don’t need your lip.” Mom snuggles deeper into his side, and Mama laughs and curls up on his other side.

Nursey closes his eyes and sinks down so his shoulders are on a level with theirs. He’s warm and cozy, and he feels twelve years old again.

***

Nursey starts out Christmas morning the next day playing with Troy the kitten and taking selfies with him on the living room floor.

_Got Troy Bolton climbing all over me - I’m living the 2008 dream #kitten #adorable #imstealingmysisterscatdonttellher_

Mama’s voice calls from the kitchen, “Derek, want a crêpe for breakfast?”

“Please! Want help?” he calls back.

“Honey, I know how that road ends. But come hang out with me!”

He sets down Troy and heads into the kitchen to take his usual seat on a barstool. He watches Mama skillfully spread batter into a pan.

“Where is everybody?” he yawns.

“Your Waigong and Waipo are at church, and your Mom and Aisha are out running.” She turns and pours him a cup of tea from the pot sitting on the counter. “Is Charleston black okay?”

“Delish. Thanks, Mama.” He takes the mug from her hand, then inhales the aroma of flowers and moans slightly.

“You alright, babe?”

“I miss Bellocq’s tea so much.”

“Didn’t we send some with you to school?” she asks as she gently flips his crêpe onto a plate

“Chowder and Wicky both like it too much. We drank it all before Thanksgiving.”

She laughs and hands him his crêpe, along with a jar of Nutella with a knife sticking out. “You need to tell us when you run out so we can send you more.”

He slathers his crêpe thickly with Nutella, and Mama leans on her elbows and watches him thoughtfully as he eats. When he’s a few bites in, she asks, “So everything is okay with Dex and Chowder again?”

“Yeah,” he says through his crêpe, “they’re good again.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she reprimands him absently before continuing, “and are you and Chowder okay? You haven’t been talking about him very much lately, and you two have history…”

Mama is way too perceptive for his own good. It’s part of what makes her a great lawyer, but sometimes he wishes she didn’t know so much about his life without him telling her. “Yes, Madam FBI, Chowder and I are fine. Would you like a written statement?”

She gasps, “Derek Malik Nurse! How dare you! I am way better than the schmucks who work at the FBI!” She bats at his durag with her fingertips. “But actually? You two are good?”

He eats the last bite of his crêpe and nods. “Yeah. It was a little weird for a while, but we got through it.”

“Good.” She glances at his empty plate. “You need another one already?”

“Pretty please?”

She leans across the kitchen island to kiss his forehead. “You’re lucky I miss cooking for my little boy.”

Shortly after he and Mama have stuffed themselves with crêpes, Mom, Aisha, Waipo and Waigong all get home at nearly the same time. As Mom and Aisha go shower, Mama and her parents have their annual awkward exchange in the living room:

“Derek, you and Ishee can open our presents when she’s back!” exclaims Waipo.

His Mama says quietly, “Mama, we have prayers at noon.”

“What? But it’s Christmas! Muslims don’t celebrate Christmas!”

“We pray every day, Mama.”

Waipo looks ready to protest more, but Waigong puts a hand on her knee and says, “We’ll give them to you after you pray.” He’s always been a little sharper on the uptake with how his daughter’s family is different from his own, and Nursey suspects it’s because his business partners are all multiple-divorcés with estranged kids.

Mama and Waipo don’t seem finished, but luckily Aisha walks in at that moment and instantly understands the situation, as she is wont to do. She says brightly, “Waipo, did I show you the Hermès Musa got me for our soulmark anniversary? It’s stunning.”

The atmosphere diffuses as Waipo smiles and starts asking after Musa, and Aisha brings out the aforementioned scarf so Waipo can ooh and ahh over it.

By the time Mom emerges, his grandparents are enraptured listening to Aisha tell funny stories about her and Musa’s apartment search, and Nursey is dangling a stuffed mouse in front of Troy Bolton. Mom subtly checks her watch, and Aisha graciously says, “Waipo, we have to go, but don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything right when we get back. Do you want anything to eat?”

Waipo, expansive now that she’s gotten to talk to her practically perfect granddaughter, waves them off with a smile.

When they’re in the hallway, Mom raises an eyebrow. “Is everything okay?”

Mama shrugs. “My parents are being their usual selves.”

Mom nods, and she and Mama squeeze hands and lean their foreheads together. Aisha leans into him and wraps her arm around his waist, and he returns the gesture. After a long moment, Mama raises her head and leads them into the Wudu room.

As he washes, he reflects on how much he’s missed praying at home. Skyping is great, but he loves the quiet unity of his family during Salah. And though the guys in the Haus have been great about respecting his prayer space (Dex even built him a little wooden mihrab  in the living room), the prayer room at home is beautiful and full of memory.

When his Mom started reconnecting to Islam, he was in middle school. The summer between sixth and seventh grade, she and Mama decided to create a Masjid for queer Muslims in New York. So they remodeled a bathroom for Wudu and connected some guest rooms into a Salah room, then started holding  Jumu’ah and  Qur’an readings and Iftars. It was in this Masjid that he met so many of his honorary uncles and aunties and cousins and listened to them as they took turns as khatib on Fridays.

It was here, in this room, that Auntie Yasmine sat him down on one of the wooden cubes and taught him to perform Wudu for the first time. It looks much the same as it did then, all deep brown wood and gray stone, although they have had to change out the plants occasionally. Yucky the yucca is still here, though.

When he’s finished with Wudu, he follows his parents into the Salah room, pulls his favorite rug from the stack, lays it out, and lets the beauty of the room calm him and prepare his mind as he sets his intention. Their Salah room is gorgeous; the congregation’s artists had decorated it soon after it was built. Uncle Mohamed decorated the  mihrab  in rainbow shades of ceramic tile, Mustafa covered the walls with calligraphy of ayahs in golden paint, and Auntie Chanda made their  Qur’an stand in the Columbia woodshop. He thinks he wants to pray to thank Allah for his family of queer Muslims. He can’t wait to see them this Friday; Mustafa has already told him over Snapchat that they would bake his and Aisha’s favorite cookies for them special.

By the time his sister lays her rug down next to his, his shoulders are loose and his mind is focused and serene. She smiles at him, and he squeezes her hand before turning to face the qibla.

Then Mom calls out, “ _Allahu Akbar_ ,” and they begin to pray.

***

The rest of his grandparents’ visit passes peaceably. He goes on daily walks through Central Park with his Waigong, who is mostly quiet but occasionally asks him questions about college life. He doesn’t really understand the English Major thing, but he loves poetry, and he likes to hear Nursey’s work, so Nursey sometimes reads him his writing while they’re walking. When he finishes sharing his poetry, Waigong often sings him Taiwanese opera. Nursey is still not sure how he feels about Chinese opera in general, but, based on the looks his grandfather gets from the old people doing Taichi in Central Park, Waigong is pretty good at it.

His grandmother’s favorite place in New York is the Met, so they go a few times to see the new exhibits. Her favorites are the fashion and the arms and armor. The whole time they’re there, his Mom gives a whispered commentary of the latest New York art scene gossip in his and Aisha’s ears.

On the last night his grandparents are in town, they go to Flushing for dim sum. As far as visits from Mama’s parents go, it’s been pretty idyllic so far. The serenity lasts just up until they’ve finished the first round of dishes.

Aisha’s talking about Med School again, and she’s discussing the hospitals she’s thinking about for her surgical residency because Aisha plans out her life insanely far in advance. “Boston is a great city, and Musa thinks he’ll be able to come live with me after a year or two—”

Waipo has a look of sudden shock. “A year or two? How long will you be doing this?”

Aisha picks out a shrimp dumpling with her chopsticks as she replies, “Surgical residencies are usually about five years.”

Waipo and Waigong exchange a look. Then Waipo asks, “But when will you have children?”

The table freezes. Aisha drops the dumpling from her chopstick. Mama is suddenly tensed with fury, her hands curled into fists under the table next to him. Mom has her hand on Mama’s knee and her smile is suddenly strained. Nursey spills his tea in surprise and quietly moves his napkin to mop it up without anyone noticing.

Aisha, the bravest of all them, continues, “Musa and I were thinking we might have kids a couple years after my residency finishes, if we decide that’s something we want.”

His grandfather speaks this time. “You _might_ have children in fifteen years?” His voice is dark. The storm is here.

His sister’s eyes are wide, her mouth open as if she wants to speak but doesn’t know what to say. Nursey wishes he could save her, but he has no idea what to do. He can’t yell at his grandparents, especially in a restaurant, but they can’t talk to Ishee like this.

Mama interjects, and he can hear the old fight in her voice, “Baba, Mama, Aisha does not have to have children, now or ever, if she does not want to.”

Waipo says something quickly in Chinese, but Nursey sucks at Chinese so he doesn’t understand. Mama retorts in Chinese, and Waipo looks slightly chastened. After a long moment, she turns back to Aisha, who is still sitting with her empty chopsticks suspended between plate and her mouth, and asks, “So, what schools are you looking at in Boston?”

For a moment, Aisha does not seem to understand the question, but after a second she smiles and begins speaking with her usual grace. Only because he has known her for her entire life can Nursey hear the slight shake in her voice and see the way her smile does not light up her eyes like usual. He quietly takes her hand and squeezes it, and she gives him a soft appreciative smile. Then, while his Mom is talking, he steals a turnip cake from her plate.

“Hey!” She laughs and punches his arm.

He just grins at her and lets her take a chicken foot from his plate. She seems a little less tense as dinner continues.

The conversation does not flow quite as well as before, but things seem to have returned to a kind of normal. Waigong doesn’t speak much, but he’s a quiet man and Nursey thinks little of it until Waigong suddenly interrupts their conversation about creative writing grad programs.

“Derek, do you have a girlfriend?”

He nearly chokes on his food. He forces himself to swallow, and he can feel Aisha and Mama on either side of him, reaching for him.

Waigong is directly across the table from him, so when Nursey picks up his head, he is looking directly into his grandfather’s eyes. “No,” he replies.

Waigong’s purses his mouth. “A boyfriend?”

Nursey shakes his head.

Waipo lets out a little cry, “But, the last time you had a boyfriend was three years ago, surely—” but Mama shoots her a look, and she falters.

Waigong continues as if nothing has interrupted them, “When are you planning to get a girlfriend or a boyfriend?”

Mama’s hands are balled into fists again. “That is not your business, Baba!”

“It is my business. He is my grandson!”

He can tell they’re going to start fighting for real, and he wants to stop it. He hates the effect fighting with her parents has on his Mama. And he thinks he needs to tell them the truth now, before they get their hopes up.

“I’m not planning to get a boyfriend, or a girlfriend, or any kind of partner. Ever.”

Now they’re all staring at him. He watches his mothers’ faces. He knows his grandparents will be shocked and disappointed, and he knows that Aisha won’t care beyond how much trouble this gets him into, but he doesn’t know what his parents will think.

At first they are just shocked. Then, he can see the flicker of disappointment across both of their faces, more pronounced in Mom than in Mama. Then Mom’s face becomes inscrutable, and Mama turns to her parents and stares them down, as if daring them to say anything.

His grandparents make no comment, and dinner ends soon after. His family is very quiet the whole time. He rides with Mom and Waigong in the taxi home, and the ride is silent. He stares out the window at Queens and wishes he could jump out of the taxi and run to some bookstore in Queens and just hide there for about a week.

When they get back, his family settles down in the living room, but he doesn’t think he can take listening to them all make small talk while they try desperately not to ask him questions and simultaneously want just as desperately to make him explain himself. So he picks up Troy the kitten, who is ambling through the hall, and hides in his room like a full grown adult.

After ten minutes of throwing cotton balls at Troy and trying to ignore the anxiety tightening his throat, he hears a soft knock. “Hey, little brother?”

“Come in,” he calls to her.

“I need you to open the door.”

He pushes himself off the floor and opens the door to find Aisha laden with hair products and a laptop. She pushes past him and dumps her stuff on his bed.

“So,” she turns to him, “What’s the Chinese for ‘that was a shit show’?”

He laughs in spite of himself. “I don’t know, but we should find out.”

She gives him a hug, and he squeezes her to his chest. After a little while, she pulls back and looks up at him. “Wanna have a hair night?”

He bumps his forehead to hers. “Always.”

He pulls out his products and arranges them on the bed as Aisha sets up _Bend It Like Beckham._ “Do you still do two strand twist outs?” she asks him as he settles on the floor and she perches behind him on the bed, already spritzing him with her water bottle.

“Yep.”

He starts out watching the movie, but as his sister gently bats his head around to get to his hair, he closes his eyes, and the movie becomes distant white noise. He doesn’t even notice when she first calls his name.

“Derek? Derek! Hey, little brother. You’re done.”

He shakes his head and feels the damp twists dance atop his head. “Thanks, Ishee. What do you want me to do? Don’t ask for any thing too hard, though; it’s been a while.”

“Actually,” she says as she slides off the bed onto the floor next to him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

She pauses the movie. “Well, do you want to talk about the whole ‘never having a partner’ thing?” Her gaze is steady, but gentle, and he knows he can say ‘no’ if he wants to.

He hasn’t actually talked to anyone about it, apart from his therapist. It didn’t seem a very pressing issue; it was just an understanding he had about himself.

He shrugs. “What do you want to know?”

Her mouth twists at his cavalier tone, but she leans her head on his shoulder and asks, “Well, mostly I want to know if this is because of something you’ve realized about yourself, like an aro or demi thing, or did you decide you don’t want to do relationships anymore?”

That is a very reasonable question. “No, I’m definitely not aro. Not even gray aro, I think. I still get crushes on random people. All the time. Fun fact, last week I thought I had a crush on my D partner.”

She looks up at him incredulously. “The redhead who threw a fit when you became roommates?”

He laughs. “Yeah. He’s a lot better since he came out, and I was horny because finals had just ended, and I was at a party.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Don’t let Mom hear that. She has not forgiven him.”

“I thought that ‘we have to forgive others because how else can we expect Allah to forgive us?’” he says in a rough approximation of Mom, and Aisha laughs.

“While she’s technically forgiven him, I think she doesn’t trust him.”

“That’s fair.” He leans back against his bed and looks at the gorgeous old posters he has from Mom’s gallery.

“Okay,” Aisha continues, “So you’re not aro or gray aro. What made you decide not to ever have a partner?”

He shrugs, and he can practically see her rolling her eyes at him, so he tries to articulate his thoughts a little. “It wasn’t so much a decision. I just kind of realized that it was not something I could do.”

“What does that mean?” He can hear a note of frustration in her voice now, and he knows he’s being opaque. How does he put into this into words, this understanding he’s come to? He knows why it has to be—every cell in his body is screaming at him that he has to protect himself, but telling his sister would involve explaining so much strange, illogical stuff about his depression.

He sits for a long moment, trying to turn his formless thoughts into sentences. Finally, he begins slowly, “I’ve known for a while…at least since sophomore year.”

Aisha watches him steadily but doesn’t say anything.

“I don’t know why; well, that’s not true. I do know why, kind of. But you’re not gonna like it.”

She runs her fingers through his newly made twists and quietly says, “That’s okay.”

“When I got to college, I dated so many people. And every single time, it wrecked me so hard, and I realized I can’t keep doing it over and over again. The love thing.”

She bites her lip, but she still looks confused.

He tries to tell her the abbreviated version: “Like, Juanca and I had our shot, and he’s gone now. If I keep torturing myself trying to chase that for the rest of my life, I’m never going to be okay. At least this way I can take care of myself. Self-care, you know?”

He sees her breath stutter, and it looks like she’s going to cry. He feels a stab of guilt and pulls her into his chest. “I’m sorry, Ishee. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

She pulls away and puts a hand on his face. “No, no, don’t be sorry. Sometimes life is hard, and I always want to hear about your life.”

“Do you think I’m being stupid?”

She chews her lips and looks thoughtfully at Troy, who is waking up from a nap on a Samwell t-shirt Nursey threw on the floor yesterday. Finally, she says, “I don’t think you’re being stupid. I think you’re protecting yourself, which is totally understandable. It makes total sense. But I also think you’re limiting yourself and your happiness.”

He’s not surprised to hear her say it, but it hurts, somehow. He looks at his feet. “I get it. I just—I just can’t, Ishee.”

“But you know that you could if you tried, right? You’re an amazing guy, little brother. Anyone would be so lucky to be with you.”

And then he would tell that person he still loves his dead boyfriend and pretends to talk to him sometimes, and that person would feel very lucky to get out of the room as quickly as possible.

“Thanks, Ish.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

They lean into each other for a long moment before Aisha asks, “Want to finish _Bend it Like Beckham_?”

“Always. What do you want me to do with your hair?”

“Actually, if you could just condition it, that would be amazing.”

“Can do.”

***

Breakfast the next morning is apprehensive all around, but his grandparents don’t ask him any probing questions—it seems like his parents headed them off—and he doesn’t say much, so it passes without incident. When they drop Waigong and Waipo off at the airport, Waipo hugs him as she usually does and Waigong shakes his hand and even pats his cheek.

When they’ve passed out of view, Mom turns to them all with a fatigued smile. “Wanna get fancy salads and do a crossword puzzle or something?”

Nursey is so relieved not to have to talk to anyone for a while, he nearly cries. And he kills it on the crossword, tying his Mama for answers found even though it’s a New York Times Thursday puzzle.

By the time of  Jumu’ah the next day, he’s regained the energy to talk to people, and he basks in the comfort of Friday lunch. He loves the lunches after  Jumu’ah, especially during break; the food is amazing, he gets to play with the little kids, and he can hang out with all his favorite people now they’re back in the city. Mustafa tells him that they have a partner who might be soulmate material; Jamal got an early acceptance from Stanford; and Cara is starting a podcast with some friends from college. Meanwhile, Auntie Chandra hugs him super tight and tells him he should come lift with her over Winter Break, and Uncle David makes him an appointment at his barbershop five minutes after prayers finish.

Finally, after a week of tiptoeing around his grandparents, he can relax. Surrounded by chattering friends and eating fourth helpings of Auntie Yasmine’s paratha, he feels warm and cozy and like he’s really, truly arrived at home.

***

It takes an embarrassingly long time for the Frogs to get their act together and Skype each other; it’s already January and Aisha is back at Hopkins when Nursey finally sees Dex and Chowder.

Nursey’s in the middle of a sandwich when Chowder texts, _Ready?_ to the group chat, and he nearly falls off the barstool trying to get to his laptop.

As soon as Skype is up, he is looking at the gorgeous grin of Christopher Chow, who is, apparently sitting on his porch in San Jose in a Sharks tank top.

“C, I hate you. Is it actually that warm there, or are you mocking me?”

Chowder laughs, “It’s just a warm day for January.”

“Ugh, disgusting. California is the worst. Also, where the fuck is Dex?”

As soon as he says it, Dex asks to join the call, and when his face pops up on the screen, Nursey nearly falls out of his chair again.

Chowder says delightedly, “Dex, your hair looks great!” while Nursey guffaws, “Hey, Ron, you’re looking good! Did you lose your scissors?”

Dex turns beautifully pink and runs his fingers through his hair. “I’ve just been busy and forgot to cut it.”

Nursey takes a bit of his sandwich, and asks, “Can you do hair flips now, Weasley?”

“Fuck you, Nurse.”

Chowder breaks up the chirping by asking how their breaks have been so far, and Dex starts describing his Christmas. As he talks about how he and his Mom baked fifteen dozen cookies, Nursey watch the blush slowly fade from Dex’s cheeks. Nursey’s not sure why he notices it more than any of the other million times he’s seen Dex blush, but when it’s gone, Nursey misses it. He wants to make Dex blush again.

“Did you get any more lobster underwear for Christmas?” he asks when Dex is done describing the gifts he made for his sisters, and suddenly his cheeks are glowing again.

“Wait,” cries out Chowder, “you have lobster underwear? How do I not know this?”

“He only wears it when every other pair is dirty, but I’ve seen it.”

Dex gives him a threatening look. “You be careful, or the next time you try to wheel someone, I’ll switch out your sheets for the Sesame Street ones.”

That’s a low blow, but Nursey can’t even be mad about it when he’s looking at a bright pink Poindexter. “You do that, Dexy. I’m up to the challenge.”

Dex shakes his head and puts his face in his hands. “You will be the death of me.”

Chowder says fondly, “I’ve missed you guys so much.”

***

It becomes a kind of game for the rest of Winter Break, to see how much he can make Dex blush. He’s not sure why he hasn’t been doing this for the whole time he’s known Dex. He blushes so easily, more easily than Nursey ever realized, and there is something incredibly satisfying about seeing him all ruddy with embarrassment.

Then, one day, he’s trying to show his parents a picture of the most gorgeous hardback Rumi collection he’d found at the bookstore, and he’s flipping through his pictures, when his Mama suddenly says, “Stop! Go back a few. What is that one of a boy?”

He rolls his eyes to himself, but he flips back to a screenshot he’d taken of a snap from Dex. It’s a selfie Dex sent him after Nursey snapped him a picture of some Bruins-patterned underwear he found with the title, “thinking of you.” He was extremely proud of how brilliantly red Dex had turned and had to save the evidence.

The photo is of Dex sitting in his high school gym giving a pained look to the camera. His Mom just stares at it.

Mama asks, “Is that Dex?” He nods, and she also stares at the photo, saying nothing but, “hmm.”

He looks between them. “Am I missing something?”

Mom looks him in the eye. “Are you dating this boy?”

“What?!” He drops his phone in surprise and scrambles to get it back. “No, I am not dating Poindexter! And I thought we established that I am not nor am I going to be dating anybody!”

Mom is unfazed by his outburst and continues questioning him, “Okay, then why do you have a shirtless picture of him in your phone?”

He checks the photo again, and, oh, yeah, Dex is shirtless. But it’s barely noticeable because it’s just his shoulders. It’s honestly funnier because the tops of his shoulders are pink, too.

“I just thought it was a funny picture! He’s all red. It’s funny. Does this have to be a thing?”

Mom raises an eyebrow at him and looks like she’s going to keep grilling him, but Mama puts a hand on her knee. “They’re not dating. Let it go, Zainab.”

“Okay, okay.”

He can’t help but hear the note of relief in Mama’s voice, and for some reason it rankles. “If I were dating Dex, would that be a problem for you?”

“Honey, you’re not dating him and you’re not going to, why does it matter what we think?” Mom asks.

He’s not entirely sure why, but it does matter to him. “He’s one of my best friends. It’s weird that you have a vendetta against him.”

She sighs, exasperated. “There is no vendetta against him. But we haven’t forgot what you’ve told us he’s said, and the way he’s treated you. Do you really think he’d be good for you?”

“I told you, he and I talked. He’s apologized, and he’s been way better. He and I are good. Like, really good.”

“You are a very trusting boy, Derek. We just want you to be safe.”

His teeth grind. He hates when his parents treat him as though he’s still a child. As if he lacks the judgment to know whether his friends are good people.

He stands. “I’m going to bed.”

His Mom calls out,  “Baby!” and makes as if to follow him, but he hears Mama say quietly, “Give him space, Zai.”

When he gets to his room, he flops down on his bed and instantly hates himself for storming away from his parents like a child. What a great way to prove that he needs his parents to trust his judgment.

He stares at Instagram for a while, and he has an idea for a post, but when he goes to look at his photos, the first thing he sees is Dex, blushing at the camera, without a shirt on.

He didn’t really think about why he screenshotted this particular photo at the time. It’s a great picture of Dex; he has a sunbeam falling on him that makes his hair glow like copper and his eyes glimmer like gold, and his mouth is pressed in his signature look of distaste, and the pink of the blush makes his ears look extra big and highlights his freckles and the broadness of his shoulders.

And now Nursey’s got a semi. Shit.

He puts his phone away and has a stern conversation with his dick.

When he finally kills his boner, he stares at his ceiling in mild shock.

Well, he supposes that answers the question about why he saved the picture. He’s such an idiot.

He’s not sure what to do about his Dex feelings, so he steals back out to the living room to apologize to his parents; he should try to only be an idiot about one thing at a time.

***

He stops doing the make-Dex-blush game, but he heads back to Samwell only a few days later after he shows his parents the picture, and the situation is so much worse than he thought it was. Now that he’s noticed that Dex has him feeling some type of way, he can’t stop noticing how little “Dex” things affect him way too much.

Sometimes when Dex laughs at his jokes, he’ll get a little warm feeling in his chest. And when he ducks his head to hide his smiles, Nursey finds himself thinking it’s adorable. And when Dex blushes, he wishes he could ogle the delicate pink of his ears.

He does other stupid things. The three of them are sharing an elective this semester ( _Race and the Problem of American Citizenship_ ), and Dex always looks so intense while he’s taking notes in his tiny, spiky writing, so Nursey writes puns and draws little dicks on the corner of Dex’s paper to make him smile. He also makes Dex coffee in his French press before games, and, even though Dex pretends he can’t tell the difference, he starts asking Nursey when he’s making coffee on normal days. Sometimes he even finds himself unconsciously slinging an arm around Dex’s shoulders or burying a hand in Dex’s hair when they’re on the way to class or when the team is watching a movie, and he has to force himself to pull away.

A few weeks after the semester starts, Nursey is hanging in the library with Chowder and Dex, reading Nabokovwhile they work on a coding thing. He’s sipping tea and basking in the glory of a metaphor when Dex stands up. “My office hours start in fifteen. Seeya guys,” he says as he heads out the door.

“Bye, Dex!” calls Chowder.

“Bon voyage, Sexy Dexy,” Nursey yells to Dex’s back (several people give him dirty looks through the study room door). He thinks he can see Dex’s ears turn pink.

Once the door closes, Nursey returns to his reading until Chowder says casually, “Hey, Nursey?”

Nursey sips his tea and looks up. Chowder is giving him an appraising look. “Yeah?”

“So, uh, are you planning to ask Dex out?”

He nearly spits out his tea. “Um, what? No! Of course not!”

Chowder is looking at him skeptically.  “Uh-huh. You’re sure about that?”

“Yes! What the fuck bro? Where is this coming from?” He puts his book down emphatically, but not too emphatically. It’s a library book.

Chowder’s eyebrows have almost disappeared into his bangs, and he replies dryly, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe the tea leaves told me this morning or maybe, just maybe, it’s the fact that you’ve been flirting with him constantly for the past two months?!”

“What?! That’s ridiculous!” he gasps incredulously. Chowder does not seem fooled.

“You know that when the three of us Skype, I can, like, see you, right?”

Nursey doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he lets Chowder stare him down. It is only now hitting Nursey just how deep a hole he has dug for himself.

He supposes he should just tell Chowder. He knows the important parts, and it would be nice to have someone else who knew. “It was an accident,” Nursey says, burying his face in his hands to avoid Chowder’s intense skepticism.

“You’ve been flirting for several months, by accident?” Even without seeing Chowder, Nursey can hear the disbelief in every word. He needs to clarify and somehow make this make some kind of sense.

“Well, it started as an accident. Then, after a while, it wasn’t. But was never meant to be flirting. Just,” he trails off, not knowing how to end this. It sounds ridiculous even to himself. “I don’t know.”

He looks up at Chowder, whose face has softened into a look of concern. “You really didn’t know?”

“Honestly, I didn’t have the slightest clue until my parents asked me why I had a shirtless picture of him in my phone three weeks ago.”

Chowder stifles a laugh, “Wooooww.”

“Shut up.”

“I mean, I have loads of platonic shirtless photos of people,” Chowder jokes, “tons of them.”

“Leave me alone. He wasn’t even that shirtless!”

“It’s like when my friends ask for nudes. Totally normal,” he cackles.

“Would you let it go?!”

“You wish. I’m going to talk about this forever.”

“Well fuck you, too.”

Chowder laughs at him for a while before letting up to ask, “So, like, are you going to do something about it.”

Nursey picks up his book and opens back up to his page. “No.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“You should probably stop flirting with him, then.”

He sighs and tugs his beanie over his eyes in shame. “Probably.”

Except, it’s really hard to stop doing all the nice little things he’s been doing with Dex. Nursey doesn’t want Dex to think he’s mad or something, and Dex always seems so happy when he does them. And Dex does nice things for him, too.

When Nursey wants green tea, Dex gets out the candy thermometer and actually measures to make sure the water is the right temperature. One day, when Nursey gets food poisoning, Dex types up his notes from their class so Nursey can use them. And when Nursey shows him a picture of the prayer room at home, Dex asks why Nursey doesn’t have a  Qur’an stand. Nursey says it’s not really necessary for one person, but then Dex shows up one day with a simple book stand, saying, “I was just hanging out in the woodshop.”

As Nursey lays a book into the stand, which is a gorgeous rosewood color, he wonders about this particular kindness. Is it possible Dex likes Nursey back, or is it just his stupid crush seeing things where they aren’t there? Dex has made things for their other friends. He put up new shelves in the kitchen for Bitty and assembled Ollie and Wicky’s insane bed.

Regardless, Nursey can’t stop doing nice things for Dex when Dex is doing all these nice things for him. Maybe Dex just wants to be better friends, and Nursey can’t let his feelings get in the way of that.

***

In later years, Derek Nurse will try to recall exactly when he really fell in love with William Poindexter. Was it over Winter Break? Was it the  Qur’an stand? Was it that one time Dex face planted on the ice and pushed a puck in with his helmet to score the game-winning goal?

Actually, he falls in love on March 6th, 2017. He can never quite remember because it was a supremely mundane day of his life: a bad day, even. Not the kind of day on which a romantic imagines he might fall in love.

On the afternoon of March the 6th, Nursey stalks into the Haus from a disgusting, frozen-mud kind of March evening and ignores the happy crowd playing Mario Kart in the living room in favor of heading up to his room to sulk alone. In a fit of petulance, he slams the door behind him.

Then he turns to find he is not alone; Dex is giving him a puzzled smile from his desk chair.

“Oh, hey Dex. Crazy weather, huh?” he says casually, hopefully distracting Dex from the slammed door.

Dex laughs like he’s made a joke, “It’s cloudy and cold. It’s been cloudy and cold for a month. Are you okay?” Well, that failed.

Nursey resolves simply to ignore Dex’s confused stare in favor of flopping into bed. But when he glances out the corner of his eye to see if the ruse worked, Dex is still looking at him, bemused.

“What?” Nursey asks, slightly more aggressively than is strictly necessary.

Dex raises an eyebrow. “You’re acting weird.”

“I’m fine!”

“You don’t seem fine.”

“Well, I am totally, completely, utterly fine. I am so fine. I am profoundly fine. I am fine as filigree. As Tiffany diamonds. As cloth of gold! I am fine!”

Dex just stares at him, head cocked thoughtfully to one side. Finally, he asks, “What’s wrong, Nursey?”

“You’ll just tell me I’m being stupid.” Nursey is being stupid. It’s objectively true. He can imagine the judgmental look Mom would be giving him right now.

“Tell me anyway.” Dex is leaning in, his elbows against his knees, his eyes trained on Nursey’s face. Dex has closed his laptop, and his brow is furrowed with concern. He seems to really, sincerely want to know what is bothering him.

Nursey sighs, “I got a B minus on my poetry project.”

“Which one?”

“The Lyricism one—about night?”

Dex’s eyes are suddenly aglow with fury. “No fucking way! Are you kidding me?”

Nursey grits his teeth. “Nope. B minus.” He’s spent so much time fighting with Dex that getting angry around him is easy and thoughtless. He forgets to keep his blood from rising and to stay calm and collected. “The whole damn class loved it, but I got the fucking bait and switch.”

“But it’s so good!” Dex is pacing around their room now, his hands clenched behind his back.

“Well, I guess not because it got a fucking B minus!”

“That’s bullshit. It made Day cry. It’s fucking amazing.”

Nursey sits up to face Dex. “Day cries a lot. Day is a crier. And making someone cry doesn’t make a poem good.”

“But if literally everybody else who heard it liked it, then what the fuck is wrong with your professor?!” Dex stares Nursey down; he looks like a storm drawn in shades of autumn.

Nursey shrugs. “He hates free verse I guess? I don’t know. All the comments he wrote were about the lack of rhythm.” His voice sags. He’s starting to feel guilty. Why is he getting so angry about this? “I should have known. He’s never shown us a free verse poem in class.” Why didn’t he figure that out? He shouldn’t get angry at the professor for his own lack of perception. His Mom would tell him to move on and let this be a learning experience. Do better next time.

Dex interrupts his train of thought, “That’s bullshit. He should have told you if free verse wasn’t allowed. You’re not a fucking mind reader.”

“Sometimes writing classes are just like that. You have to know your audience. And his comments weren’t wrong.”

“That’s fucking stupid. And his comments were wrong. Those poems deserve an A.” Dex sits down forcefully. “You should read them at the Annie’s open mic night, so they can get the love they deserve.”

Nursey gets a cold rush of embarrassment. “I can’t read B minus poems at open mic night.”

Dex looks at him with a steely eye. “Nursey, those are not B minus poems. Do you want me to get Chowder in here to listen to them? He’ll tell you.”

Nursey’s breath catches in his chest. He thinks Dex doesn’t notice, and he forces himself to say calmly and casually, “Um, no, I don’t think so.” One of the poems in the series is about dating Chowder, and Nursey doesn’t think he should read what is basically a love poem about Chowder, to Chowder. It would be awkward, to say the least.

“Then you should read them to me,” Dex insists, “I’ve gotten pretty good at listening to poetry. I’ll tell you how good they are.”

Nursey demurs, “You’ve already heard them all.”

Dex shakes his head. “I heard them two drafts ago.”

Nursey’s not sure why Dex is being so insistent, but he is vain enough to want compliments to lift his disappointment. “Okay.”

Dex grins. “I’ll grab us some beer,” he says and runs out.

Nursey breathes a laugh. This situation is so surreal. A few months ago, this would have been unthinkable.

As he’s pulling out his laptop, the graded, commented poetry cycle falls out. He picks it up and smoothes it against his comforter. The comments are written with red ink in scrawling handwriting.   _Lacking in rhythm. Reconsider punctuation. Stale word choice._

Dex reenters the room with a six-pack. “Are you reading his comments?” he asks darkly as he pops open a bottle ands hands it to Nursey.

Nursey twists his mouth. “Some of them are on point.”

Dex rolls his eyes and settles into his desk chair again. “Whatever. He’s an idiot.” He sips his beer,  and after a long moment he suddenly turns pink. “Um, so can I really hear it?”

Nursey takes a long, deep breath, then nods and opens his laptop.

The poems are not as bad as he remembered. In fact, he rather likes them. Dex is pretty effusive. After good lines, he gives snaps (the writing crew had taught him about snaps), and when each poem is done, he gives little notes about his favorite lines or the feel of the poem.

More telling, perhaps, than his comments is his rapt gaze. He looks at Nursey with unwavering focus, like they’re shorthanded on the ice at the end of a tie game. He’s never given a reading to just one person, and it’s strange and intense and intimate. By the end the air is thick between them. After he finishes reading the last poem, there room is full of heavy silence. Dex is still staring at him, and Nursey has a mad impulse to kiss him.

Nursey swallows and looks away.

Dex asks, “So, you gonna read those at open mic?”

“Maybe one or two.” Nursey smiles slightly.

Dex grins smugly and scoots his chair forward to punch his arm. “Told ya.”

Derek Nurse may never remember it, but if he were told that he fell in love on this day, at this moment, he would not be surprised. It was moments like this that made him fall in love with William Poindexter over and over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: Intense family discussions


	5. Chapter 5

There’s hardly a minute left in the game when Brandeis’s winger breaks away and carries the puck into their zone. Samwell is up by one, and Brandeis has pulled their goalie, and Dex can feel the press as all six Brandeis skaters rush toward their goal.

Dex chases down the winger with the puck, skating so close alongside him that Dex very nearly takes an elbowing penalty. He scrabbles for the puck with his stick, but the winger dekes him and quickly passes it to center ice.

Brandeis’s third line center is the one who catches it, and Dex is sure they’re about to get tic-tac-toed because this guy does not have the skill to get the puck past both Chowder and Nursey. This guy has to pass it to Brandeis’s first liner, who is on Dex’s side of the ice and might have a chance in hell of scoring on Chowder. Dex starts racing over to the first liner and almost doesn’t notice when the third liner doesn’t pass. He doesn’t see what’s happening until he’s gotten to the first liner and finds that the guy doesn’t have the puck; then Dex looks back, and his blood turns cold.

Instead of passing the puck, the third liner is charging down the center lane, heading directly toward the goal. He’s going to try to rush Chowder.

Dex tries to scream at Chowder over the roar of the crowd, but only when he looks at the goal does he realize how fucked they really are. Nursey, clearly thinking the same way as him, is crossing to protect the goal from the first liner. He’s not even looking at the third liner, and he’s blocking Chowder’s sightline, so not even Chowder knows what’s happening. Nursey is right in the path of the rush.

Dex screams, “NURSEY! CENTER ICE!” as he sprints over to try to intercept the third liner. But he’s too slow.

He sees the moment Nursey hears him. Nursey glances toward center ice, up at the third liner bearing down on him, and Dex can see the moment Nursey’s eyes widen and his jaw drops.

Then h’s flying backward, thrust through the air by the third liner. Their skates are off the ice and their bodies move together. And then they’re crashing into Chowder.

Dex thinks he screams, or it might be the blowing of the whistle. The goal is sliding around like a pinball, and the crush of bodies is still moving backwards. He starts skating over, but he almost trips when he sees Nursey’s helmet lying against the boards.

 _No_ , he thinks, _no, no, no_.

By the time he’s next to them, the Brandeis center has extracted himself from the pile. He’s grinning. Dex nearly spits on him.

But then he sees Chowder and Nursey tangled limply on the ice. Chowder’s face is red with blood, and he is shifting slightly under Nursey’s weight. Nursey has his eyes closed. He’s not moving.

“Nursey! Nursey! NURSEY!” Dex screams pleadingly, pulling off his glove and kneeling on the ice to hold his hand in front of Nursey’s face. Nursey’s’s breathing, but his eyes are still closed, and he doesn’t seem to be hearing Dex’s voice

“Nursey!” Chowder yells, jostling Nursey gently with his goalie pads, “Nursey! Wake up!”

A long, breathless moment later, Nursey’s eyes are open. He looks up, slightly dazed. “Dex?”

Dex feels a tap on his shoulder—the referee is standing above him. “Let me talk to him, son.”

Dex stands and shifts out of the way. “He just woke up. He was unconscious for, like, twenty seconds.”

The ref nods and kneels down to talk to Nurse. He’s speaking too quietly for Dex to hear, but a few seconds later, he’s pulling Nursey up to stand. Dex pulls Nursey’s arm over his shoulder, and Chowder quickly follows and takes Nursey’s other side. Together, they guide Nursey off the ice.

Murray is waiting for them with the gate open. He just says, “Trainer’s room, boys,” and follows them out through the tunnel.

Their trainer, Jessie, is waiting for them. Dex and Chowder help Nursey onto one of the raised exam beds, and Chowder sits on another. Jessie instructs them to take off their gear, and Dex picks it up as they pull it off, thankful to have something useful to do. Nursey still looks a little dazed, and it’s taking all Dex’s willpower to stay here and not go back out and punch the grin off that Brandeis asshole’s mouth.

Dex carries their equipment back to the stalls. It takes a few trips, and every time he goes back in, Jessie is doing a different exam. First she does concussion protocol for Nursey. From the look of concern on her face, the results are not good. Dex is pretty glad to get out of the room after that one. He throws Nursey’s torn uniform in the laundry and wipes down his skates then heads back into the trainer’s room to get Chowder’s stuff. By then, she’s done an overall body check and is telling Nursey he’s got bruised ribs on his right and he’ll need to get an upper body X-ray to check for fractures. Then Dex goes back to the changing room, puts Chowder’s pads up to dry, and checks his mask; everything looks okay. When he gets back to the trainer’s room, Bitty’s there. Bitty shoots Dex a gentle smile then continues to listen as Jessie tells them that Chowder looks to have fractured his nose, but he’ll need X-rays, too. Otherwise, he’s pretty okay; his goalie pads did a good job.

Bitty, Jessie, Coach Murray, and Chowder talk about logistics for a while, but Dex can’t stop watching Nursey. His eyes seem a little distant, and his hands are twisting tightly in his lap. After a few minutes, he bites his lip and starts chipping at the dark green nail polish he’d put on for Lardo’s birthday party.

Bitty suddenly asks him, “Dex, is that okay with you?”

Dex jolts out of his reverie. “Sorry, what?”

Bitty puts a gentle hand on Dex’s arm. “Can you and I drive to the hospital in your truck? Murray, Jessie, and these two are going in Jessie’s car.”

“Yeah, of course.” Dex looks up to tell Jessie and Murray, “It’s parked outside the Haus.” They give him little smiles that tell him Bitty communicated this information while he was tuned out. He sighs and shakes his head. He’s got to be on his game to deal with this.

Chowder and Nursey follow Murray and Jessie out of the trainer’s room. They both bump Dex back when he holds out his fist, which is something.

Then he and Bitty are left in the trainer’s room. Bitty tugs on his arm. “Dex, c’mon. We’ve gotta change.”

The team is back in the locker room. They yell when they see Dex and Bitty walk in, asking how Chowder and Nursey are. Bitty gives them a brief summary, and Dex is grateful he doesn’t have to talk. As he takes off his uniform, he can distantly hear them worrying among themselves, but he tries not to listen. He’s on edge enough; he doesn’t need the team’s stress, too. He does gather that the goal was thrown out, and Samwell won. That’s good. Now they’re only one win away from a spot in the playoffs.

He’s reaching into Nursey’s stall to unwrap the tape from his stick when Ford appears next to him. “Dex, hit the showers. Don’t worry about their stuff. I can do it.”

“Nursey likes to do a fresh tape job every game—this game’s tape needs to come off. It’s unlucky now. And Chowder likes his stall arranged a certain way, with his mask at the bottom and—”

“Text it to me when you’re on your way, Dex. You gotta go.” He looks down at her, and she is giving him gentle but adamant Manager Face. He nods and heads to the showers.

He and Bitty leave while everyone else is still waiting for Coach Hall to give the post-game debrief. They all ask him and Bitty to tell Chowder and Nursey they all miss them. Bitty smiles at them and promises he will. Dex only manages a grimace.

On the walk over to the Haus, Dex texts Ford a precise description of Chowder’s stall arrangement while Bitty tells him about the last minute of the game, which included a ten-minute stoppage in play as a linesman dressed down the Brandeis third line center. The linesman apparently didn’t realize when his mic switched on mid-rant, so the whole crowd got to hear some of it. Bitty describes it as “colorful.”

Dex’s truck is waiting for them where he left it after yesterday’s shopping trip, and Dex takes driver’s seat while Bitty navigates. The traffic is mercifully light, and they make good time, mostly because Dex goes at least fifteen over the speed limit the whole way there.

When they get to the hospital, they still have to sit in the waiting room until Murray comes to fetch them. Murray greets them with a wan smile, which makes Dex’s chest constrict with nervous hope. “Bittle. Poindexter. Come on. We’ve got good news.”

He follows Bitty and Murray as they walk through the hospital halls, side by side, and listens as Murray updates Bitty on Chowder and Nursey’s injuries. “Looks like Chow got off easy. Fractured nose and two stitches in his lip, but as long as he doesn’t mess with it, it should heal up easy. The doctor is less sure about Nurse; his ribs only have soft tissue bruising, and his skull looks okay under X-ray, but he might still have a concussion. He’s getting an MRI now.”

Bitty raises an eyebrow. “That was fast. Did they skip the line or something?”

“We’re lucky it’s a Sunday.” Murray smiles. “And Jessie has friends here.”

Dex is realizing again how crazy Division I sports are—they skipped the line at _the hospital_ —when Murray stops outside a hospital room. When he opens the door, Chowder is sitting in there, talking to a nurse. They both to turn toward the open door, and Chowder grins, then yelps, “Shit!” and grabs at his face.

Dex laughs against his will, and Bitty runs up to Chowder, laughing, “Honey, you can’t smile? How will you ever recover?”

They hug as Chowder replies, “Maybe I just never will. I’ll have stitches forever.”

Bitty punches his shoulder lightly. “Don’t even joke.”

Then Chowder gives Dex a short, tight hug. Dex doesn’t even know how to describe what he’s feeling, so he just says, “I told Ford how to fix up your stall.”

He can see Chowder trying not to smile. He ruffles Dex’s hair and says, “Thanks, bro,” and they fist bump before Chowder turns back to the nurse, who continues giving him instructions on how to take care of his nose.

Bitty has sat down in one of the hospital chairs, but Dex is too nervous to sit, so he leans against the wall next to Bitty and plays with his car keys. Eventually, Chowder comes and sits in the chair on Bitty’s other side. “Hey. I hear we won the game.”

Bitty springs into action and retells everything he told Dex earlier. Chowder is a better audience, laughing at all the right spots. Dex just watches the door.

Finally, the door opens and Jessie and Nursey are back. Nursey smiles to see them all, and Jessie helps him climb into the hospital bed. A doctor follows them in, and talks to Murray, “Miss Tsosie, Mr. Nurse, and I have already talked, but I’d like to keep him overnight and have him get regular checks. His MRI was a little borderline. Might be just a mild contusion, but it could be something more serious. If all’s well, we’ll discharge him tomorrow.”

They keep talking logistics, but a nurse is helping Nursey get arranged in his bed, raising his feet, and Dex crosses over to Nursey’s side to help, but the nurse finishes before he can even offer. Nursey smiles up at him. “Too slow, Dexy.”

A pang of guilt hits him at he looks at Nursey’s bruised face. “Yeah. I should have stopped that dick before he rushed you guys.”

Nursey seems confused for a minute, then his brow furrows. “Are you kidding me? Dex, no fucking way. That kind of shit isn’t supposed to happen, especially in a goddamn NCAA hockey game. No one could’ve known.”

“I saw him before you did.”

“Yeah, well I saw him when he was crashing into my face, so that’s not saying much.”

Dex isn’t sure he agrees, but Bitty interjects, “I forgot to tell y’all! He got a three game suspension.”

That, at least, is satisfying.

Once the doctor has left, Jessie waves her goodbyes, and Murray turns to them like it’s their post-game review. “Okay, boys, I’ve got to go home—my husband’s been in the parking lot for forty-five minutes now. Bittle, Poindexter, Chow, you can all take Poindexter’s truck, right?”

They nod, and Murray puts a hand on Nursey’s arm. “I’ll see you in the morning, alright, son?”

“Alright,” Nursey says quietly. Murray heads out, but Dex watches Nursey. Something seems off about him. He’s wringing his hands again.

Bitty stands. “We should go. Chowder, you need rest, and we shouldn’t keep Nursey up anymore.”

They’re nearly out the door when Nursey says, “Wait,” almost too quietly to hear.

Dex stops in the open doorway. In the hall, Chowder and Bitty turn back, confused, to see why he stopped.

“What’s up, Nurse?”

Nursey visibly swallows, and he looks at his twisting hands as he says, “Would you guys mind if one of you stayed here tonight?”

For some reason, it takes Dex a long moment to process before he replies, “I can stay, if that’s okay.” He doesn’t have class until the afternoon tomorrow, so he should be fine.

Nursey looks up nervously, “Yeah. Chill.”

He looks out at Bitty and Chowder, who still look confused. “Guys, I’m going to stay with Nursey. Take my car.” He pulls his keys out of his pocket and tosses them to Bitty. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Bitty seems perplexed, but Chowder just nods and pulls Bitty along after him. “See you tomorrow, Dex. Tell Nursey we miss him already.”

Dex heads back into the hospital room and sits in one of the chairs, unsure of if there is something he’s supposed to be doing. Nursey is looking at his hands again.

Eventually, Nursey says, “I don’t like hospitals.”

“Okay.”

Nursey glances over at him. “Can you just, not leave me alone too much?”

“Yeah. I don’t have anywhere else to be.” Dex pauses a moment then asks, “You’re sure I’m allowed to be here?”

Nursey smiles. “Yeah. I asked.” He sighs and closes his eyes. “I’m, um, going to try to sleep. They said I should and a nurse would come in and wake me up every two hours. ” He looks profoundly tired.

“I’ll turn the lights off.”

After Dex is settled back into the chair, Nursey whispers to him, “Sweet dreams,” and Dex says, “Good night,” back, and it’s almost like they’re just rooming together on a roadie, in some strangely clean hotel room. But most hotel rooms are strangely clean anyway.

Dex closes his eyes and settles back into the hospital chair and prays for the first time since Christmas mass. Prayer has left him with a sour taste in his mouth since July and everything that had gone down with his Dad, but this was worth praying for.

He silently prays to thank God that Nursey and Chowder are alive, that they their injuries are the kinds that will heal fully in time. He prays that Nursey doesn’t have a dangerous concussion. He prays that Nursey and Chowder will be better in time for playoffs. He prays that their pain isn’t too bad, and that they won’t fall behind in their classes. He prays that while Nursey’s out he will still be good enough that they make the playoffs. He prays that he gets to punch that Brandeis kid someday. He prays until he falls asleep in the hospital chair.

***

Dex doesn’t know why he wakes up, but he opens his eyes, and, for a moment, he’s confused. The room is dark, lit only by the orange glow of the streetlamps outside, and it takes him a long time to remember why he is here, in a strange hospital room. Then he sees Nursey sitting in the bed and recalls that Nursey doesn’t want to be alone in the hospital.

Dex leans back in the chair and is sinking back into sleep when his brain finally processes what he saw. His eyes snap open. Nursey is sitting bolt upright, his eyes glinting in the dark, staring at the wall.

That’s not…right. He should be asleep. Nursey is sick. He should rest. Why is he awake?

“Nursey?” Dex yawns.

Nursey looks over at him. “Go back to sleep Dex. It’s fine.”

“But it’s–” Dex checks his watch and says in a slurred, sleepy voice, “–three forty in the mornin’. Why’re you ‘wake?”

“Don’t worry about it. Go to sleep.”

Dex shakes his head, trying to wake up. Everything about this feels wrong. Nursey doesn’t sound tired at all. And he’s not sitting right.

“You need to keep your feet above your head.”

Nursey laughs wetly. “Okay, Dexy.”

Nursey has been crying. Dex can hear it in his laugh. Why has Nursey been crying?

“Derek, what’s wrong? Why have you been crying?”

Dex can see Nursey stiffen, and he could kick himself. Why doesn’t Dex have any tact about this shit?

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me. I’ll go back to sleep.”

Dex is fully sunk back into the hospital chair when Nursey says quietly, “It’s okay, Will.” Dex opens his eyes, and Nursey is looking over at him, his eyes shining. Nursey continues, “Can I tell you something serious?”

Dex swallows and sits up. “‘Course.”

“It’s—it’s not a nice thing.”

He meets Nursey’s eyes. “That’s okay.”

Dex can see Nursey’s chest move as he breathes. He whispers, “Okay.”

There’s a long moment of silence, until Nursey starts, “When I was at Andover, I had a boyfriend. His name was Juan Carlos. He, uh, was my soulmate.”

The past tense makes the breath catch in Dex’s throat. What the fuck had this boy done to make him stop being Nursey’s soulmate? Had he been a cheater? God forbid, an abuser?

Dex’s face must do something drastic because Nursey hurriedly continues, “No, no, it wasn’t like that. Juanca’s, like, the best person. But he’s, um, dead.”

“Oh,” says Dex, like an idiot.

“Yeah. He, uh, died when we were seniors. Car crash.” Nursey’s voice trembles a little.

Dex doesn’t know what to say, but he walks over to the bedside and wraps an arm around Nursey’s shoulders. With his arm around Nursey, Dex can feel him shaking slightly.

“So, like, that’s why I don’t like hospitals. Because I was with him in the hospital when he—” Nursey’s voice breaks. “Yeah.”

Dex squeezes his shoulders as gently as he can, trying to be careful of Nursey’s ribs, watching his face for any sign that he’s hurting Nursey.

“He was so great, Dex. He was so thoughtful, and he cared so much about people. He wanted to be a great scientist, but he wasn’t pretentious. Well, he was pretentious, but not in, like, a bad way. He was really into bad movies, and—” he breaks off again.

He meets Dex’s eyes and says in an anguished whisper, “I miss him so much. Will,” his voice is choked with tears, “he was only seventeen.”

Even as tears start falling down Nursey’s cheeks, he keeps looking at Dex, as if waiting for something. Dex has to do something. He wonders what his mother would do in this situation.

“Nursey, your ribs are only hurt on your right side, yeah?”

“Uh huh. Why?” he replies in a watery voice, his eyes wide and shining.

“Shift over.”

Nursey moves over in the hospital bed, and Dex carefully, carefully climbs in. He places himself on Nursey’s left, with his head resting off of the pillow and his body balanced on his side so Nursey has plenty of room. He gestures for Nursey to lie down, and, with a slightly bewildered look, he lies back, nestling himself neatly against Dex’s chest, his shoulder just under Dex’s chin.

For a long moment, Nursey just looks at Dex, his chest heaving slightly, his eyes shining. Then he gasps, and suddenly he buries his face in Dex’s shoulder and makes a sound not unlike a scream. He grabs at Dex’s hand and sobs into his flannel. Dex just squeezes his hand and keeps up a steady murmur: “You’re okay, you’re safe, it’s okay.”

Eventually, Nursey’s sobs haltingly come to an end, and he whispers, “Thanks, Dex.”

“Anytime.”

He makes to get out, but Nursey tugs on his hand. ”Stay.”

Dex stares at him in shock for a second before saying, “You’re sure I’m not hurting you, right?”

Nursey shakes his head, then winces. “Ow. Shouldn’t do that.” He laughs softly, “I guess that was the wrong answer.”

“You are a menace to everyone, including yourself. But I’ll stay.”

“‘Cause you love me, right?” Nursey chuckles. Dex’s heart beat is suddenly going twice as fast, and he scrambles for something casual and friendly to say.

“You’re my line mate. ‘Course I love you.”

Together, they drift into a heavy, exhausted sleep.

***

William Poindexter remembers vividly the moment he fell in love with Derek Nurse. It was only a few days before the night in the hospital.

When he got to his stall after morning practice, he found a text from his Aunt Jeanie asking him if Elijah could call that afternoon. Adam McQuaid had gotten injured last night—a really gruesome slash to the neck—and apparently Dex’s opinion on the subject was vital. He texted her a time and followed everybody to team breakfast.

As soon as he got back to his room from his afternoon class, he pulled out his phone and asked, “Nursey, do you mind if I have a phone call with my cousin?”

“Yeah, no prob,” Nursey replied. He closed up his book and started packing up his backpack while Dex settled into his desk chair. “Same cousin as last time?”

Dex nodded. “Yeah, every time one of the young Bruins gets injured, he wants to talk to me. Dunno why. His Dad is even more into the Bruins than me. They could talk easy.”

Nursey paused, poised on the edge of his bed, looking thoughtfully at Dex’s phone. “Does your cousin have an Insta?”

Dex raised an eyebrow at him. “Um, yeah? But he’s only thirteen, so it’s private.” Where the hell was this line of questioning going?

Nursey held out his hand for Dex’s phone. “Lemme see. I have an idea, but I need to check his Instagram to be sure.”

Dex had no idea what was going on, but he pulled up ‘Lijah’s Instagram and handed it over to Nursey. “What do you think you’re going to find?”

“His soul, Dex,” he replied sardonically, “Now, hush.”

Nuresey flipped through ‘Lijah’s Instagram, head bobbing, occasionally making little “uh-huh” noises, until finally he looked up at Dex and said flatly, “You are an idiot.”

“Why?!”

Nursey gave an exaggerated sigh. “Really, Dex?” He turned the phone screen to face him. “You couldn’t figure it out from this?”

It was a picture of Elijah and the family’s new kitten. Dex stared at it, trying to divine whatever the hell Nursey was seeing. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Nursey rolled his eyes. “Dex, he says he named his cat Lydia, after one of his favorite characters.”

Dex looked at him, perplexed. “So?”

“ _Ya Allah_ , Dex, are you kidding me? Your cousin is gay!”

Dex considered it. It was perfectly plausible from everything Dex knew about Elijah, but there were some dots he was definitely not connecting. “How can you tell this from a picture of his cat? And what does this have to do with the Bruins?”

Nursey groaned and flopped dramatically back onto the bed. “You are the most clueless gay boy I have ever met. Do you need me to spell it out to you?”

“Yes!”

With a long-suffering sigh, Nursey sat back up and explained, “Okay, so if he named his cat Lydia, there are two main options for the cat’s namesake: Lydia Martin of _Teen Wolf_ fame or Lydia Bennet, the ill-starred but legendary youngest Bennet sister from _Pride and Prejudice_.”

“Nursey, this means nothing to me.”

Nursey shot him a dirty look. “That’s because you’re an uncultured swine.”

“I’m okay with that.” Though Dex wasn’t sure it was true anymore; he knew what a sonnet was, now. There was no going back on that one.

Nursey continued, “Well, if he named the cat after Lydia Martin, he’s definitely gay. If he named it after Lydia Bennet, he’s so gay you can see it from space. Dex, he’s not calling you to talk about the Bruins. He’s calling to talk about cute boys!”

Dex’s jaw actually dropped. “Nursey you are a genius.” So many things suddenly made sense. Every time his cousin called, Dex tried to talk hockey with him, and Dex always hung up with the sense that he’d disappointed Elijah somehow, but he’d never known why.

Then the phone started ringing. It was ‘Lijah. Dex looked desperately to Nursey. “Nurse, I don’t know how to talk about cute boys.”

Nursey stared back at him disbelievingly. “Are you serious?!”

“I dunno! I’ve never done it before!”

Nursey hissed, “You are so useless!”

“Hey, I can build a set of shelves in under an hour.”

“Shut up, I’m thinking.” Nursey glared at the phone for a moment, then grinned, “Got it. Put it on speakerphone. I’ll talk to him.”

“You’ll to talk to him?”

“Sure, now do it before he hangs up!”

“What do I tell him?”

“You’re introducing him to your dope roommate? I don’t know! Answer the fucking phone!”

Dex answered the phone with fumbling fingers, “Hey, ‘Lijah, how ya doin’?”

Nursey joined after a minute, once Dex told Elijah, “Hey, bud, do you want to meet my ‘dope’ roommate?”

Nursey gave him the same affronted look he gave Dex every time he tried to use slang, but Nursey spoke into the phone, “Hey Elijah! Dex has told me so much about you! Nice to meet you!”

Elijah got super excited. Nursey was pretty Instagram-famous, and it seemed that ‘Lijah followed him and was a big fan. Dex couldn’t blame him for fanboying a little. If he was thirteen and still lived in a small Maine town, he’d probably give a kidney to talk to a boy like Derek Nurse.

Nursey and Elijah hit it off in a big way. Nursey started just talking generally about the Bruins’ rookies, but then he mentioned his personal weakness for Brady Skjei, and suddenly they were off to the races.

Dex faded into the background, only commenting occasionally as ‘Lijah and Nursey discussed all Elijah’s favorite players in extreme minutia. Elijah recited all their stats through the phone and the adorable things they had done in interviews and Bruins media. They talked extensively about an episode of _Behind the B_ in which Brandon Carlo _played with his dog_.

Nursey was endlessly patient and asked tons of questions and listened carefully as Elijah gushed, laughing along with Elijah as he told funny stories about various players. Nursey’s expression was softer than Dex had ever seen it before. Nursey didn’t even seem to realize how transformed he was when he smiled over at Dex, eyes shining with affection for this sweet thirteen-year-old boy.

After Elijah’s mother made him hang up, reminding him he had to do homework, Nursey spent a further ten minutes waxing lyrical about what a great kid Elijah was and chastising Dex for never introducing them before.

All Dex could do was smile. _I adore you_ , he thought. The feeling echoed and crescendoed inside him. The words were on the tip of his tongue, and he could practically feel them forming on his lips when he realized what he was doing. He shook his head.

While Nursey was distracted, Dex unobtrusively rolled up his sleeve. There were no new names on his arm. The last one was still Chris Chow. He couldn’t say a thing like “I adore you,” to Nursey. They were roommates. Friends. Bros.

And Nursey would never be interested in _him_. Nursey was gorgeous, and smart, and hilarious. He was so out of Dex’s league, it wasn’t even funny. Nursey was a poet and a regular in the Swallow’s Fifty Most Beautiful Issue. Dex was a redheaded CS guy with a constant sunburn and a GPA that spent Junior Fall on life support. And he’d seen the people Nursey hooked up with. They were all gorgeous, interesting people. He did not fit into either of those categories.

And that was to say nothing of the ways he’d personally hurt Nursey. The things Dex had said freshman year when he’d cared so much about being an old-fashioned Maine man, the way he’d reacted to the dib flip, the million little things—microaggressions, Nursey called them—that he’d done to make Nurse uncomfortable. They’d talked about it, and he was working on being better, and Nursey had forgiven a lot of things, but Dex had still done them. Those things had not magically disappeared.

Nursey would never be mean about it. They’d probably go on a few dates, but it wouldn’t have panned out. They weren’t soulmates.

So, he took the feeling and carefully put it in a shoebox, nestled between the things he kind of wished he could say to his father and his latent crush on Eric Bittle. Then he went to bake some brownies.

Dex was pretty sure he could keep it under wraps, but, even so, for the rest of that day he could not stop smiling like an idiot every time he saw Nursey.

***

When Dex wakes up, Nursey is already sitting up, doing concussion tests with a nurse. Murray is sitting in one of the hospital chairs, watching the tests. It occurs to him that Murray saw them sleeping in the same hospital bed. That’s fucking weird.

While Nursey is standing to do some kind of coordination test—Dex worries about false positives on that one—he rolls out of the hospital bed as casually as he can manage and sits in the hospital chair next to Murray.

“Morning, Poindexter.”

“Morning, Coach.”

Dex watches Nursey get tested with bated breath. The nurse doesn’t say anything definite, but when the tests are done, she smiles and says, “I’ll go get the doctor, but you should put on some normal clothes.”

Nursey turns to them with a grin; then he looks at the small pile of Under Armor folded on his backpack and frowns. Dex can’t blame him; that stuff is gross with all the sweat from last night’s game.

“No worries, Nurse,” Murray assures him, “Bittle gave me a set of fresh clothes for you.”

Dex really does love Eric Bittle.

Not long after Nursey’s finished changing, the doctor arrives. She does a few more small tests, then says bracingly, “Well, Derek, it looks like we can let you go. You are going to need to take it easy—avoid screens, don’t read too much, no strenuous activity. Lots of rest. And I’m going to have you come back to see me in a week.”

Even though Nursey got off easy, without any permanent brain damage, Dex isn’t quite relieved. It’s not until Murray’s dropped them off at the Haus and Nursey is held tightly in Chowder’s arms that Dex relaxes. He watches Nursey and Chowder chat brightly, and follows them as they walk into the Haus with arms around each other’s shoulders. Dex breathes a long sigh of relief. His guys are okay. All is well.

***

Dex is midway up the ladder of their bunk bed when Nursey gently grabs his wrist. “Hey, uh, Dex, can we talk a minute?”

He jumps back down to face him. “Yeah, what’s up?”

Nursey chews his lip for a moment before he says, “Um, I just wanted to ask you, if you would mind not mentioning Juan Carlos to anyone else? It’s just, I haven’t told anyone at Samwell about him, other than my therapist.”

Dex’s heart hurts in his chest, and he wants to give Nursey a hug, but he just says, “Yeah, ‘course.”

“Thanks, bro.” Nursey gives him a sad smile and starts climbing into his bed. Dex feels like there’s more to say, but he doesn’t know what. He can’t let Nursey go to bed like that. Dex is so useless. What would Chowder do in this situation?

Inspiration strikes. “Hey, Nursey?”

“Yeah?” Nursey gurgles through a glass of water. He looks up at Dex with his face still in his water glass and spills all over his t-shirt. “Oops.”

Nursey wipes fruitlessly at his t-shirt with his hands, and Dex sighs and opens Nursey’s shirt drawer to throw him another one. God help him—when did he start finding this shit adorable?

Once Nursey’s finished changing, he smiles contritely up at Dex. “Thanks, Dex. What were you saying?”

Dex takes a steadying breath. “Oh, um.” He grips the wood of the ladder and stares at his hand. He can feel his ears turn hot. “I just wanted to say, if you ever wanted to talk about Juan Carlos, I’m, um, here. For you. To talk to.” He looks over at Nursey, hoping beyond hope that Nursey understands what he means, even though he’s awkward as hell.

Nursey is really smiling now. Dex’s cheeks grow warm. “Thanks, Dex.”

He nods brusquely and climbs the ladder. He needs to get out of the range of that smile. “Goodnight, Nursey.”

“Goodnight, Dexy.”

Dex falls asleep desperately trying not to think about whether Nursey has dimples.

(He totally does, and they are the cutest damn things Dex has ever seen.)

***

Nursey doesn’t mention Juan Carlos again until the team has a game night the next weekend. Nursey doesn’t play much; he mostly chills on the couch and occasionally makes a comment to contribute to the conversation. Dex supposes he’s taking it easy, though the doctor said yesterday that he was cleared to do more mentally challenging tasks. Dex is glad Nursey’s better, of course, though a very lovesick part of Dex already misses reading Nursey’s homework aloud to him.

After the rest of the team has left, the residents of the Haus hang out a while longer, then head up to bed. He’s changing into pajama pants when Nursey says, “Dex, do you mind if I talk to you about something kind of sad?”

Dex still has a shirt only halfway on, and he’s so blindsided by Nursey’s question that he forgets where he is in the shirt and it takes a further five minutes for him to get the shirt on. When he finally emerges out the neck hole, Nursey is laughing.

“You alright, Dexy-boy?”

“I’m fine,” he says resolutely, “What did you want to tell me?”

Nursey’s smile falters a little. “It’s not, like, actually sad. It’s just, it will probably make you kind of sad.”

Dex settles in his desk chair and faces Nursey. “Okay.” He thinks he can take being a little sad for Nursey.

Nursey glances at the door then curls his knees against his chest. “Okay, so you know how everyone was talking about high school during game night?”

Dex nods. He remembers. Chowder told the story about his high school friend Katie puking on him and becoming his soulmate again; it’s a good one.

Nursey swallows visibly. “Well, I usually can’t talk about high school because, y’know, Juan Carlos was my best friend the whole time.”

“Ah. Makes sense.” Dex tries to imagine telling stories about high school without mentioning his best friends, and it seems pretty impossible.

“But, um, I wanted to ask you…do you mind if I tell you a funny high school story? I never get to tell anyone. It’s about Juan Carlos,” Nursey asks, looking through his lashes, as if preparing for Dex to shoot him down.

“Yeah, ‘course,” Dex replies, maybe too quickly.

Nursey’s smile returns a little. “Okay, well, get over here. It’s weird having you over there like you’re interrogating me.”

Dex settles next to him on the bed, leaning against the wall. It’s strange—the last time he was sitting here, he was crying about Chowder. Now he’s listening to Nursey talk about his soulmate. They have a lot of secrets between them, these days.

Nursey lies back on his pillow and stares at the bottom of Dex’s bunk. He begins, “Okay, so at Andover, we lived in dorms, right?”

“‘Kay?”

Nursey’s hands come alive as he starts to tell the story. “The dorms had kitchens, but they weren’t, like, the best kitchens. And in my dorm, the stove wouldn’t self-light anymore. You had to use matches.”

“They let teenagers have matches? That’s a fucking mistake.”

“Funnily enough, matches don’t really figure in this story. Anyway, I was sick one day in sophomore year, and I really wanted soup. And Juanca told me he’d warm up a can of soup for me—”

“Juanca?”

“Nickname for Juan Carlos,” Nursey clarifies.

“Makes sense.”

“Anyway, Juanca went to warm me up some soup. And I was just chilling in my room, feeling all good about myself because I had a cute boy making me soup.” Nursey does a little shimmy against the backboard to illustrate.

Dex grimaces. “I find this story unrelatable.”

Nursey sits up to look him in the eye. “Didn’t Bitty leave you soup freshman year when you were sick?”

“I’m not sure how that’s relevant,” he replies archly.

“Uh-huh.” Nursey smirks knowingly and Dex, against all his will, blushes. Well, that’s another one of his secrets that Nursey knows, apparently. Nursey continues, “Anyway, it was kind of taking a while, and I was bored, so I went out to check on him.” He sighs and buries his face in his hands. “And I found him sticking a fondue fork wrapped in paper towels into the toaster.”

“I’m sorry, what?! Can you break that down for me?”

Nursey breathes a laugh. “Okay, so have you ever used a fondue fork?”

Dex shoots him a scathing look. “Of course not.”

“They’re like these long metal sticks with a little fork on the end. He’d wrapped one in paper towels and stuck it in the toaster to light it on fire because we were out of matches. He was going to light the fucking stove with burning paper towels.” Nursey’s face is full of fond exasperation.

“Didn’t you have a microwave?”

“Yes, but he said he refused to use it on principle.”

“What principle?”

“His ancestors had invented fire in the woods, with no tools at their disposal. He should be able to create fire in a fully stocked American kitchen.”

“Wow.”

“I know. He was so pretentious in early high school. I loved that about him.”

Dex could see Nursey starting to get distracted. His tone is a strange mix of affectionate, nostalgic, and sad. Dex doesn’t want Nursey to get lost in old feelings; he knows where that road ends from personal experience.

“So, did he light the stove?” Dex prompts him.

Nursey’s focus snaps back onto him, and his eyes clear as he replies, “Uh, no, actually. I tried to stop him, and accidentally tripped into him.”

Dex grips the comforter. “Oh my God, you literally have not changed. How did you survive this?!”

“Narrowly. When I fell, I knocked him into the rest of the paper towels.”

“Oh, so you set one roll of paper towels on fire.”

Nursey smiles self-consciously, “Well, actually, he had the whole new bag of paper towels next to him.”

“Nursey!”

He laughs, “Calm down Dexy! The floor was tile, and we got the fire extinguisher.”

Dex buries his face in his hands. “I guess that explains where you learned to use a fire extinguisher.” In addition to Nursey’s seven other reasons for being famous at Samwell, he’d also once put out a fire in the Founders’ bathroom once. They’d put up his picture in the library offices, though Dex suspected that was just a pretense so the librarians could ogle Nursey’s face openly.

“Yeah, and the fire people were super helpful, too.”

“NURSEY! You had the fire department called on you?!” Dex stares at Nursey’s shameless face in disbelief. This guy is ridiculous.

“Yeah, but it was overall a good thing because we found out the dorm sprinkler system was broken ‘cause it didn’t go off. Except in Nathan Myers’ room, but he’s a dick,” Nursey defends, grinning.

“Oh my God,” Dex groans as he flops sideways down onto the bed, “Nursey, I had, like two heart attacks just listening to that story.”

“It’s a good story, right?” Nursey elbow crawls over to him and smiles.

Dex’s brain shorts a little because Nursey’s stunningly gorgeous face is only inches away from his, but he gets himself together. “Yeah.”

Nursey stays hovering there, right above him. Smiling. His lips look very soft. Fuck, Dex needs to get out of here.

“I should go to bed. Bitty wants me to do extra practice tomorrow.”

Nursey grimaces and draws back to the head of the bed, letting Dex pass. “You and Bully, right?”

“Yeah.” He glances at Nursey through the ladder rungs as he climbs the bunk bed. Nursey looks displeased and maybe…jealous?

And that, Dex tells himself sternly, is what they call wishful thinking.

***

After Nursey tells Dex the paper towel toaster fire story, he starts telling Dex things about his life that Dex didn’t even know he didn’t know.

They’re passing a blunt between them and Nursey is rapping about his favorite vegetables—sprinkled with occasional deep social commentary—when he says:

“In Junior year of high school, I wanted to be a Dadaist rapper.”

“What does that mean?”

“Like a very random, kind of meme-y rapper? Juanca and I were very into Dada for a while.”

“Sounds kinky.”

“You’re the worst.”

A few days later, they’re hanging out in the kitchen, working on Haus dinner while everyone else is at class:

“When Ishee and Musa got married, I was Aisha’s best man, and Juanca was my date.”

“Your sister had a best man?” Dex asks as he checks the thickness of the roux Nursey is stirring. Nursey is getting really good at mac and cheese, and Dex is inordinately proud.

Nursey waves his hand like it’s nothing. “Our parents are lesbians, and like, we grew up super queer. She and Musa had a pretty non-normative wedding. But that’s not relevant to the story.”

Dex finds Nursey’s family fascinating. They seem like the apex of all the magical things that can only exist in New York City and Samwell, Massachusetts.

Nursey continues, “So, I had to give a toast. But I was super nervous, so I wrote it all out on a piece of stationery the night before. And Juan Carlos wrote a good luck note on the back to read before I gave the speech.”

“I think I can see where this is going.”

“Yeah, well, I was so nervous, I stood up and read, ‘Dear Derek, you’re gonna be great, and if anybody thinks otherwise, _son los pendejos_.’”

“What’s a penday-hose?”

“Pubic hair.”

Dex has to sit down on the kitchen floor to laugh.

The Wednesday before playoffs, they’re walking back from writing crew (Dex shared a poem for the first time, to his own mortification) and Nursey is staring up at the moon:

“The moon makes me feel so old.”

Dex doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just looks at the moon, too.

“I know that doesn’t make any sense. The moon is insanely old. But the moon has a sort of melancholy to it. Like it remembers all the sadness it’s seen, but it can’t stop being beautiful and drawing the tides back and forth. And it makes me melancholy. And I think melancholy is what it feels like to be old. When your life has had enough sweetness and sadness that it all bleeds together.”

Nursey looks at him, eyes wide and dark in the night, and it’s the closest Dex has ever come to kissing him.

Dex looks back up at the moon. “I feel old when my little sister, Myra, gets angry. She’s so angry at my Dad for not accepting me that she’s angry at my brother because he’s still talking to Dad. And I have to help her not be angry, so she can focus on other things. I have to tell her to let it go and accept things that are wrong. That makes me feel old.”

He looks back at Nursey and meets his eye. Nursey nods, and then they’re back at the Haus.

***

It’s the last kegster before Spring Break, and Dex is hype. They’re going to playoffs, spending break with the team is going to be ‘swawesome, and the doctor has cleared Nursey to play again. Dex has on one of the pairs of pants that became too tight between sophomore and junior year, and he’s wearing his flannel open over a very flattering undershirt. At least six guys have checked him out while he’s been hanging out with Ford and Bitty in the corner, and he feels fucking good.

He’s trading smiles with a hot guy he’s pretty sure is on the rugby team when Ford looks up from her phone to ask him, “Hey, have you seen Nursey? He was supposed to play beer pong with Hops, but Hops says he’s disappeared.”

“I’ll find him. Give me a minute.” He hopes dearly that Nursey has just gotten distracted by something (or someone) else at the party and forgotten. The word ‘disappeared’ sends a little shiver down his spine.

He crosses to the rugby guy and leans down to speak in his ear. “Hey, there. You got plans tonight?”

Rugby guy smiles coyly at him. “Maybe. What’s your name?”

“Will.”

“Emilio,” he replies, holding out his hand to shake. “What do you think I should do this evening? You seem to have ideas.”

Dex has to restrain a smile. “I think, you should hang out at this party for a little longer while I go tie up some loose ends. Then–” he leans in so his lips brush against Emilio’s earlobe, “–you should let me use one of my shiny new dental dams.”

Dex thinks he can hear Emilio’s breath catch ever so slightly. He pulls away, and Emilio is looking at him with hungry eyes. “Don’t take too long.”

Dex grins back and heads off to find Nursey. He’s not on the porch; he’s not in the basement (Dex does find two members of the women’s tennis team, but he doesn’t think they notice him open the door); Nursey’s not in the reading room.

Dex finally finds Nursey in their room, lying on his bed, watching something on his phone.

“Nursey, Hops was looking for you. Why’d you ditch the party?”

Nursey glances up from his phone. “Oh, I should have texted him.”

His eyes are red. Why are his eyes red. “Bro, have you been crying? What’s wrong? Is there someone I should be having words with?”

Nursey looks up at him properly. Now Dex can see: his eye makeup has blurred, and his eyes are slightly red in the lamplight. “Would you please fuck off? I’m trying to watch something here.”

“What the hell? I’m checking if you’re fucking okay, and you tell me to ‘fuck off’? You’re crying!”

“It has nothing to do with you, okay?” Nursey glares at him.

Dex does not understand what the fuck is going on. They haven’t fought like this in forever, and this argument doesn’t even make sense. “So? You’re my friend! What is wrong with the party? You fucking love parties. Is something going down?”

Nursey gives him a dark look. “Nothing is ‘going down,’ William. I am just avoiding a clingy ex, okay? It’s a perfectly normal thing to do. Now leave me the hell alone.” He flicks off his side table lamp, so the only light is the glow of his phone.

“Okay. Whatever,” Dex mutters. He heads back downstairs, texting Hops and really, really looking forward to forgetting this for a while with Emilio.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Hockey violence, concussion, broken nose, bruised ribs, car crash mention, death mention, intense grief, homophobia mention


	6. Chapter 6

“And now, let’s welcome the last, but certainly not the least, of our jaw-dropping juniors, number twenty-eight himself, Derek Malik Nurse!”

Nursey runs up the bus stairs into a crushing cacophony of screams.

“Nurse-y! Nurse-y! Nurse-y!”

“TWENTY-EIGHT IN DA HOUSE!”

“DeeeeeeFENSE!”

Nursey hollers wordlessly and almost skips down the aisle of the bus, giving high-fives and half-hugs until he gets to his seat. Dex is standing by the window, grinning at him. They bump left wrists, right wrists, then bump chests and scream, “FROZEN FOUR!”

The whole bus echoes them, “FROZEN FOUR!”

Louis continues on in his announcer’s patter, “My friends, let’s welcome our spectacular SENIORS! First up, number seventeen, the charming PACER WICKS!”

They yell and chant for all the seniors, and when it’s Bitty’s turn, Louis traps him at the front of the bus so they can shout his name for five minutes. Then Bully and Whiskey pick him up in a Boy Scout carry and parade him down the bus to his seat. Bitty tries to give a speech, but ends up weeping into Chowder’s chest, sobbing, “I love y’all so much!” over and over.

Finally, Hall, Murray, and Ms. O’Neil the bus driver climb into the bus to cheers, and they set off for Philly.

The bus is full of chattering; everyone is electrified with excitement. But, when Nursey turns to Dex, he already has his laptop out and seems to have decided to ignore Nursey as much as possible. It stings a little, but it’s nothing new. Things have been tense ever since the kegster before playoffs.

Nursey watches Dex out the corner of his eye. Dex is resolutely avoiding his gaze, focusing on his laptop. It’s the same one he’s had since freshman year, but somehow it’s still beautifully clean, while Nursey’s computer is only six months old and looks like it belongs to a child who chews with their mouth open.

He wishes he could explain himself. Dex never really forgives anyone unless they tell him exactly why they did whatever wrong they committed. Nursey has apologized for being a dick, but the awkwardness lingers.

So much of their relationship has grown from fights and apologies and explanations and learning to work with one another. When Dex explained to him that his casual descriptions of fabulous European vacations hurt him, they’d talked it out. Nursey told him about how those trips had formed him as a person and resolved to be more considerate. They hadn’t fought about it since.

And when Nursey couldn’t stand listening to Dex call opposing teams “pussies” and “little bitches” any more, they’d fought about it. Then, when they cooled off, he explained more carefully why he’d asked Dex not to use those words. And Dex actually stopped, with only occasional slip-ups. Dex has even fined himself for saying those words.

But Nursey can’t explain this fight because that would require telling Dex a great many things that Nursey really can’t say to him.

Dex’s bright hair bounces at the edge of his vision, and Nursey wants to run his fingers through it.

He remembers watching Dex at the party, loitering in the corner of the living room in an outfit that made him look like he stepped out of a porno. Nursey had been getting an eyeful over the rim of his drink, imagining tugging on that brilliant hair, when an ex showed up by his side.

“So, that the new guy?” Sufjan asked, snidely.

He gave him a withering look. “Fuck off, Sufjan.”

He sneered back. “Creative. Should I tell him about you?”

Nursey ignored him, but Sufjan started talking like a ringleader at the circus, “The amazing Derek Nurse! The guy who’ll be so sweet you think he gives a fuck about you, then he’ll ditch you the moment you ask him to stick around! That one breaks hearts for fun.”

“Fuck you.” Then Nursey ran up to his room to hate himself for a while.

It had been a bad moment for Dex to find him, while he was agonizing about being alone forever and vividly imagining the day when he finally had to push Dex away. And Nursey had reacted…badly.

And now Dex is pissed, and Nursey can’t even be mad at him. Dex is right.

Nursey’s thought spiral is interrupted when Dex bumps his shoulder. “Hey, Nurse?”

He looks over cautiously. Dex is gazing at him openly, honestly. It’s one of the Dex Faces that Nursey loves most.

“Yeah?”

Dex swallows, and Nursey watches his Adam’s Apple bob up and down and wants to kiss it.

“Things have been kind of weird this week,” Dex says, quietly enough that no one around them can hear, “But, like, can we call truce? It’s the Frozen Four.”

Nursey nods quickly. “Chill. We owe the team.” Dex holds out his fist, and Nursey bumps him.

Suddenly, Nursey remembers a brilliant idea he had last night. He leans in and says, still in an undertone, “Hey, do you want to do a ‘teamwork exercise’ I thought of last night? To celebrate?”

Dex raises an eyebrow. “I’m already afraid. Tell me.”

“It’s called Operation Resting Waffle.”

***

When Nursey’s alarm goes off at one in the morning, he sits bolt upright and immediately turns to throw his legs over the side.

He hears a low laugh. Dex is watching him, his smile visible even in the hotel room darkness. “I’ve never seen you wake up so fast.”

Nursey grins back. “I’m a man on a mission, Poindexter.” He stands to stretch; his bones always feel strangely wooden late at night.

There’s a knock at the door, and a little thrill rides up his spine. He can already feel the adrenaline pumping; he wants to do sprints in the hotel hallway.

He takes a deep breath to focus himself and goes to open the door.

Whiskey, Tango, Ollie, and Wicky are all arranged outside the door like they’re on a _Fast and Furious_ poster, wearing matching grins.

Nursey curtsies. “Welcome, gentlefolk, to our humble abode.”

They file past him. Tango is hopping up and down slightly. Ollie takes Wicky’s hips and shakes him. Whiskey stops in the doorway and leans over to murmur in Nursey’s ear, “Denice and Cam are on their way. They stopped to talk to Chris. We found him wandering the hallway.”

“What?” His brain is so entrenched in the game plan, it takes him a long time to understand Whiskey’s words.

Whiskey shrugs. “I don’t know why. They said they’d catch up, but–” his head suddenly turns toward the sounds of soft footsteps, “–never mind, they’re here.”

Ford, Bully, and Chowder appear outside the hotel door. Ford waves. “Hey Nursey! Sorry we’re late.”

“Come on in.” He gestures his arm to welcome them in. As they pass him, he tries to give Chowder a significant look, but Chowder just shrugs. Nursey settles for raising an eyebrow at Ford. She quirks her mouth with concern.

That’s not good. But now is not the time to deal with it.

When he turns, the whole crew is arranged on the ends of the two beds, and someone has had the sense to turn on the lamps. Dex is standing in front of the team, looking to Nursey and waiting for him to start talking. Dex gives him a bracing smile. Nursey smiles back and stands next to Dex to face the crew, all watching him intently, their eyes glittering with excitement. He takes a deep breath and summons all his showmanship.

“Welcome, esteemed members of SMH, to Operation Resting Waffle! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to fuck with our beloved, sleepy Waffles on the eve of their first Frozen Four! Do you accept?”

Tango yelps, “YES!” and everyone else nods and makes quiet whooping sounds.

Nursey grins and resumes, “Okay! First things first, we’re going to break into two teams: Team Hops and Team Louis.”

He pulls out his phone to read off the teams. “Dex is captain of Team Hops, which is going to be Tango, Ollie, and Wicky. I will captain Team Louis, which will be Ford, Bully, and Whiskey. Chowder, you go with Team Hops.”

They are all so accustomed to scrimmages that they automatically separate into teams, Team Louis on one bed, Team Hops on the other.

Nursey takes another deep breath. “Okay, so. Here’s the plan:

“As I’m sure you are all well aware, Louis and Hops are incredibly heavy sleepers.”

Bully gives a knowing grimace.

“Tonight, while they’re sleeping, we’re going to make use of that unusual trait. We’re going to switch them in their sleep.”

Wicky grins. “Nice. The team did that to me and Ollie when we were frogs.”

“Ah! But, my darling Wicky,” Nursey explains, doing his best magician impression, “we’re going to go one step farther. Since we have their roommates with us in the persons of Bully and Whiskey, we will also be switching their roommates. So when they wake up, it will initially seem as though everything is the same, until they slowly realize all of their stuff has transformed into someone else’s. Further, we’ll have someone in the room telling them they’ve lost their minds.”

Wicky’s eyes grow wide. “Whooooaaaaa.”

Tango is bouncing very fast now. “But Nursey, won’t they know immediately that they’ve been switched?”

Nursey remembers when he and Juan Carlos pulled this prank on two sophomores in their dorm and chuckles, “Oh, sweet, innocent Tango. I was forged in the crucible of boarding school. Trust me. It will fuck with them big time.” He looks over at Dex, who meets his eyes and nods. “Okay, Dex is going to give you the logistics.”

Dex speaks in clipped, efficient words, “This is the play: each team will go to their target’s room—Team Hops gets Hops, Team Louis gets Louis—and pick them up and carry them to the elevator. Team Hops will go on the elevator first. Then, when Team Hops has gotten to the seventh floor, Team Louis will take the elevator down to the fourth. All clear so far?”

Nursey sees nods all around. Dex releases a nervous breath and looks at him, seeming somewhat lost. Nursey mouths, “Carry” to him. Dex’s brow clears, and he keeps speaking, “Oh, and we have a very specific carrying technique so we don’t wake them up. We will take off all their blankets and use the fitted sheets like stretchers to carry them. Make sense?”

Ford hums in understanding, and everyone nods again.

Nursey interjects, “Team Hops, please take his pillow with you. If you cause him any breakage, I will end you.”

Ford laughs, and Team Hops all murmur their agreement with great seriousness. Nursey’s heart warms a little bit. He loves his team; they’re all so gentle with their Waffles. Well, apart from the sense in which they pull shit like this on them. But this is a kind of love, too.

Dex finishes, “Do we have any questions?”

The whole crew shakes their heads. He and Dex share one last look before Nursey turns to them to say, “Okay. Operation Resting Waffle is a go! Let’s head out.”

The whole team gives quiet little cheers as they file out. When only he and Dex are left, they share a look.

“You ready?” he asks.

Dex nods. “You?”

He breathes once in and out of his nose. His heart is pumping with anticipation like a small drum. “Yeah.”

Dex holds out a fist. Nursey bumps it, and they walk out the door.

Nursey takes Team Louis up the stairs to the seventh floor, and Dex takes Team Hops down two flights to the fourth. As soon as they’re out of earshot, Nursey hisses to Ford, “What is up with Chowder?”

Her brow furrows. “I don’t know. He said he couldn’t sleep.”

“Mmm.” Nursey’s never known Chowder to have much difficulty sleeping. To his knowledge, it didn’t happen the last time they were at the Frozen Four. This is not a good development.

He hasn’t had any brainwaves about the Chowder situation by the time they’re outside Louis’s room, but it’s go time, so he puts it out of his mind for the moment.

Bully, as Louis’s roommate, has the actual key to this room and opens the door, leaving the door open so the hallway lights illuminate the room as they all walk in.

They work quickly. Ford clears a path on the floor for them to walk through. Nursey flicks on a lamp so they can see what they’re doing. Whiskey strips the blankets with quick, clean movements.

They all hold their breath as Bully carefully, carefully slides the pillow out from under Louis’s head and immediately replaces it with his hand before gently laying Louis’s head down on the sheet.

Ford punches the air in celebration, and they arrange themselves so each of them has a corner of the sheet. Then, together, they slide the sheet and Louis off the bed until Louis is resting in a white hammock between them. It’s hefty in Nursey’s hands, but they’ll definitely be able to make it easily.

They navigate through the room, then the hallways, like they’re playing a very large, delicate game of Snake. They make a careful procession from Louis’s room to the elevator, but when they arrive, instead of meeting Team Hops, they find Chowder, pacing back and forth anxiously.

“Chowder?” Nursey asks in a whisper.

Chowder turns to them, his eyes wide. “Nursey, the elevators are broken!” He pokes at the down button miserably. It doesn’t light up or make any sound.

Nursey almost drops his corner of the sheet. “Shit! Okay, let’s put him down, we have to think about this.”

They lay Louis down on the carpet; he shifts onto his side and mumbles in Swedish, but otherwise gives no indication he isn’t comfortably sleeping in his own bed. Nursey checks his phone, and finds one of Dex’s signature paragraphs of blunt text: _Elevator doesn’t work. We put Hops back in his bed. Waiting in hallway & sent up Chowder. Text if have any ideas._

Bully whispers, “We’re not going to take the stairs, right?”

Nursey shakes his head. “No. Way too dangerous. Give me a minute to think.”

He steps around Louis’s sleeping form to look out the window at Philadelphia. Their hotel is so close to the Wells Fargo Center he can read the glowing 76ers and Flyers ads from here. He stares into gently glittering suburbs beyond, wracking his brain for some kind of solution. Could they switch Louis and Hops with other people on their floors? But no one else is nearly as heavy a sleeper as those two. Maybe it would be enough to switch all their stuff instead? But that would take forever. He wishes Juanca was here; he was so good at figuring out the sticking points in pranks.

“Derek?” Whiskey’s voice interrupts his train of thought, “I think Denice is having some kind of revelation over here.”

Nursey turns to see Ford gazing back into the hallway with a dreamy, awed expression. “Guys, I…I think I know how to do it,” she says, her hand reaching out as if to press an imaginary elevator button.

Nursey crosses to her side and gently rests his hand on her head. “What is it, Foxy?”

She turns her head to look at him, brushing her soft curls against his palm. With her eyes wide, she whispers as if the words could break between her teeth, “This hotel has a dumbwaiter.”

There’s a long breathless silence while they all process what Ford is suggesting.

“Do you think it could work?” breathes Bully.

Nursey chews his lip. “Maybe.”

Chowder says with wonder, “Ford, you’re a genius.”

Whiskey offers a counterpoint, “You’re insane.”

A smile grows on her face, and a glint appears in her eye. “Let me test it.”

Nursey wants to tell her yes, but…“Foxy, you are so much smaller than them. It wouldn’t be fair comparison.”

“I’ll do it.” Chowder has a slightly wild look in his eyes. “Come on, Foxtrot. Let’s go.”

Nursey’s gut tells him that there’s something off in Chowder’s voice, a tinge of dangerous audacity, but by the time he has the words to say it, they’ve disappeared around the corner.

He texts Dex with slightly shaking fingers:

_Ford had an idea_

_She and C are testing it_

He closes his eyes and leans against the wall. He feels the buzz of his phone in his pocket. Probably Dex asking what the plan is. He doesn’t think he can face answering that question without knowing the plan works. Dex will tell him he’s reckless for even letting them try it.

The wait is hideously long. By the time he hears the patter of feet returning, he’s imagined a million disaster scenarios. He thinks he’s aged five years in ten minutes.

When the feet come to a stop, he forces himself to look. Chowder is grinning in his face, and his heart unclenches. “It works, Nursey. Foxy sent me down to the 6th floor, and I was fine. Plenty of room.”

He breathes out slowly. “Chowder, go down and tell Dex the plan. We’ll send Louis down first.” Chowder nods and is moving toward the hallway when Nursey looks at Louis sleeping on the ground and suddenly says, “C, stop.” He has had a vision of terror.

Chowder stops short. “Yeah?”

“Make sure they don’t send up his sheet. Too dangerous.”

Chowder’s jaw tightens and his eyes widen. “Oh my God, yes.” He gives a wave and darts down the hall to the staircase.

Nursey turns to face Team Louis. “Okay, let’s get him off the ground.”

Bully, Whiskey, and Ford all nod with determination, and each of them takes a corner of the sheet.

Ford leads them through the halls, bringing them finally to a stainless steel door set in the wall three feet off the ground. They set Louis down, and Nursey checks his phone. He has more messages from Dex:

_This is crazy Nursey_

_I can’t believe this is happening_

Then, a few minutes later:

_We’re ready by the dumbwaiter_

_Send him down_

Nursey nods to the team, and Ford summons the dumbwaiter. When she’s opened the shining door, Nursey instructs Bully and Whiskey to squat and form a Boy Scout carry with their arms, and he and Ford shift Louis until he’s sitting neatly on their forearms. Nursey steadies Louis as Bully and Whiskey slowly rise until he’s level with the dumbwaiter. Nursey and Ford transfer him limb by limb, gently moving him until he’s curled inside the dumbwaiter, completely tucked inside, safely away from the door.

They step back and appreciate their work. Bully pulls out his phone and takes a picture of Louis curled inside the silver nook. “He’ll want to see this.”

Ford presses the buttons, and the silver doors close in front of him. She closes the swinging door, and Nursey shoots a quick text to Dex: _Louis en route_

Then they wait. Bully paces. Whiskey sits quietly, staring intently at the wall. Ford scrolls through her phone compulsively. Nursey just stares at his hands and waits for the buzz of Dex’s reply.

Finally, after what seems a very short and a very long time, Nursey’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He pulls it out so fast that it goes flying, but, in his usual manner, Bully catches it out of the air. He glances at the screen and hands it back to Nursey. “Dex says they have Louis and they’re sending up Hops.”

Without speaking, they circle around the dumbwaiter. Ford has her hand poised on the door, and when they hear the _ding_ that says Hops has arrived on the seventh floor, she pulls it back.

Once she’s pulled the swinging door all the way, the two inner doors start opening. But Hops must have shifted in his sleep because as soon as they move apart, his pajama-clad form starts moving.

Hops is falling out of the dumbwaiter.

Before Nursey can even do anything about it, Bully is diving. He catches Hops mid-fall and twists in midair to land on his back, with Hops safely curled on his chest. Nursey has never truly understood until this moment why Bully was a star wide receiver in high school.

But even Bully’s skill is not be enough. Hops is shifting on his chest. Hops’s head rises slightly and Nursey curses internally. They were so fucking close.

“Bully?” says Hops sleepily, looking up at Bully from his sternum.

Bully smiles softly. “Hey, Jonny.”

Hops gives him a dopey grin. “Hi.” He pauses, then asks, “Whazgoinon?”

“You’re dreaming, Hopsy.”

“Oh.” He stops and seems to consider. “Can I go back to sleep if I’m dreaming?”

“‘Course you can.”

“Okay.” Hops reaches up to kiss Bully on the cheek. “Gunnight.”

And he settles down on Bully’s chest to sleep again.

Nobody moves for a minute. Nursey hardly dares to breathe.

Ford breaks it first. “Is he actually asleep?”

Bully nods.

“I cannot believe that worked,” Whiskey says fervently.

Nursey, Whiskey, and Ford carefully roll Hops off of Bully’s chest and onto the fitted sheet. They’re standing around the sheet, readying to pick him up, when Nursey catches sight of the dumbwaiter, which is still open, and nearly laughs out loud. Hops’s silk pillow is sitting in there. He snaps a picture of the pillow to Dex with the message, _Got him_ , then adds, _Bring Chowder up with you. I want to talk to him._

Nursey pulls out the pillow and closes up the dumbwaiter. He places the pillow safely on Hops’s stomach, and together the team lifts him and brings him into Louis and Bully’s room. They rest him on Louis’s bed and tuck in the fitted sheet. Bully places the silk pillow beneath his head and covers him in Louis’s comforter. Nursey can’t help but notice how gentle he is.

When they leave, Tango is waiting outside for them. “Is Hops in there?”

Nursey nods, and Tango grins. “Nice job! Louis’s all settled in, too.” He slips past them and closes the door behind him.

As soon as the door is closed Bully taps Nursey’s shoulder. “Nursey, Tango has the key to the other room—how will I get in?”

Ford chimes in, “I got you, Bully. I have the key to all the SMH rooms.”

They all stand in the hall for a moment, not knowing what to do with themselves. Nursey himself can’t quite believe they pulled it off.

Whiskey raises his hand to Ford. “Up high, Foxy. You saved us all.”

She grins and gives him a high five. Soon they’re all trading high fives, and Whiskey and Ford are hugging, and Nursey lets out a long, slow sigh. They did it.

He checks his phone to see if Dex has texted him and winces. It’s almost two. “Okay, good job Team Louis. Let’s all go get some sleep.”

They say their goodbyes in the staircase, and Nursey heads to his own room. His body is strangely exhausted, even though he hardly exerted himself at all, and he unlocks the door with profound relief.

He finds Dex and Chowder sitting on Dex’s bed, watching something on a phone.

“Whatchya watchin?” he asks as he settles onto the bed across from them.

Dex replies, “Just tape.” His face splits into a sudden, gorgeous smile. “I can’t believe we did that. This is the stupidest thing I ever did that went right.”

Nursey grins back at him. “Believe it.”

Dex and Chowder tackle him, and they’re rolling around, half-wrestling, and Nursey is not sure he has ever been this content. When they finally settle onto their backs, panting, he remembers Hops falling on Bully and laughs, “Hey, guess what I found out tonight?”

“What?” Chowder and Dex ask in chorus.

“I’m pretty sure Bully and Hops are a thing.”

Dex asks incredulously, “How the hell did you find that out?!”

“I’ll tell you in the morning. Speaking of which, we should sleep.”

Dex nods and sits up, but Chowder goes suddenly still. Nursey looks at him, staring at the ceiling with his dark eyes wide.

He touches Chowder’s wrist. “C, Ford said you were having trouble sleeping. Do you want to sleep with me tonight?”

“Really? You wouldn’t mind it?” says Chowder.

Nursey wraps his hand around Chowder’s wrist and squeezes. “Never, C.” Dex leans down to give Chowder a hug.

They all crawl into bed, and Nursey falls asleep with his ankle hooked around Chowder’s ankle.

***

Breakfast is amazing. The team is passing around Tango’s video of Hops running around like a chicken with its head cut off and screaming in horror, “MY TOOTHBRUSH IS THE WRONG COLOR!” and “TANGO, OUR ROOM MOVED CLOSER TO THE GROUND! WHAT THE FUCK?” Osey, their back up goalie, is curled up on the ground in fits of laughter.

Ford is recounting to the other half of the table her brilliant idea to use the dumbwaiter while Bully shows off his picture of Louis curled inside the dumbwaiter shaft. Louis has already made it his profile picture on Instagram.

Bitty, meanwhile, is sitting across from Nursey and Dex, smiling and shaking his head. “I cannot believe y’all did that. Who puts a grown man in a dumbwaiter?”

Dex shrugs. “I can’t believe it either. Nursey is the mastermind of the whole thing. He’s the evil genius, Bitty. I’m just a victim of peer pressure.”

Nursey gasps at him. “William Poindexter, the nerve of you! You were fucking thrilled when I told you my plan!”

The team heads to their morning ice time joking and chatting like it was any other team breakfast. Dex bumps his shoulder and says into his ear, “I think we did good,” and Nursey can’t help but smile back.

***

The semifinal is against Minnesota-Duluth, and it is brutal. Nursey plays twenty-two minutes, and every shift is a battle. Duluth’s first line is insane, and their fourth has an enforcer who starts trying to get him to fight halfway through the first period using all the usual strategies.

Luckily, the linesman listens when Nursey complains, and the enforcer gets a major for it in the second period, but the checks are still painful, and halfway through the third period, they’re tied. Bitty got a goal in the first, and Nursey had an assist on Whiskey’s goal in the second, but Duluth’s first line got two in the second, one when he was on the bench, and one that flung through his legs when he was battling their winger in the corner.

A splash of water hits his face, and he turns to see Dex next to him, water bottle poised to spray him again. “Stop beating yourself up.”

“I was right there for the second one!”

“He should have gotten called for elbowing. You’re playing fine.” Dex always has a strangely flat, intense affect on the bench during games, but after three years, Nursey finds it more comforting than anything.

“Thanks, Dexy. You’re playing great. That shot you had in the second should’ve gone in. It was just luck.”

Dex nods stoically at him

Murray’s voice screams over the noise of the crowd. “NURSE, POINDEXTER, ON DECK.”

The last five minutes of play seem to happen inside a bubble. Nursey’s brain is off, he is moving on pure instinct, and he doesn’t even realize what’s happened until Tango and Whiskey crash into him, clutching each other and screaming. It takes him a long moment to realize they’re having a celly.

Now they’re up by one, and there are only seventy seconds left.

All he can hear is the sound of his own breathing in his ears. He crashes into player after player, desperately trying to keep them away from the puck. Duluth has pulled their goalie, and the crush of bodies is everywhere, and—

The buzzer rings. The game is over. They’ve won.

Nursey is suddenly grabbed from behind and carried into the boards in a sloppy celly. He turns to find Dex’s laughing face inches from his. “Nursey!” Dex cries into his ear, “We fucking did it!”

Nursey giggles and hugs him, screaming back, “We fucking did it!”

They scream and scream until Bitty yells at them to pose for the victory picture. He clutches Dex’s shoulder on his right and Bully’s on his left. He can’t believe he gets to do this. He was recovering from a concussion barely two weeks ago, and now he’s got Dex’s arm wrapped tightly around his waist as they watch Bitty thank everyone in the arena for coming to see them.

Only the goal-scorers are kept for press, so Nursey heads directly for the locker rooms to change. Hopped up on adrenaline, he can’t seem to keep his feet, and he keeps falling onto Dex in the stall next to him. After the third time he falls on Dex while trying to take his socks off, Dex takes him bodily in his arms and puts him down on the seat of the stall. “Stay there until you can stand without hurting yourself,” Dex reprimands him, though he’s clearly trying not to smile.

Nursey sticks his tongue out at him, and that gets him to laugh. A satisfied little tingle runs up Nursey’s spine.

He’s able to finish undressing without any incident, and he even showers with both feet firmly planted the whole time, but as soon as he steps out of the shower, his legs are flying out from under him.

He flails, his mind racing, cursing his clumsiness. Fuck, he’s going to fracture his tailbone and miss the fucking NCAA Division I Final. The whole team is going to pay for his complete fucking lack of fucking coordination.

Then warm, damp hands are catching his shoulders, suspending him off the ground. One of the hands pulls away, and a strong, pale arm is wrapping around his waist, and he is lifted slowly up to almost standing height. He gets his feet back under him and turns his head to see Dex’s face. They’re pressed together so Nursey’s whole back is warm with contact and he can feel Dex’s towel pressing into the base of his spine, and when he looks back, their noses almost touch.

Dex’s face is taut. “Are you okay, Derek?”

He nods.

Dex swallows. Nursey watches his throat move. Dex has five light brown freckles on his neck. Nursey never noticed that before.

“You good to stand?” Dex asks.

Nursey breathes a sigh and nods, and Dex releases his waist and steps back. “Watch where you’re going, okay?”

Nursey nods again. Where did all his words go?

Back in the locker room, he finds his voice again. Bitty and Whiskey are back from press, and the whole team is watching and laughing as Louis reenacts their goals. As they walk back, Nursey joins Hops as he tries to remember every one of Chowder’s amazing saves.

“Okay, and the next one was the one where number fifty-three deked him, right?” Nursey tries to remember.

“No!” yells Hops, “that was in the third period. The next one was the one that he touched with his glove and sent straight into someone’s bucket.”

“My bucket,” groans Dex. “Thought someone tried to high-stick me.”

Nursey rubs his hand over Dex’s head and pouts. “Poor baby. Having your head tapped by a puck. How did you survive?”

Everyone laughs, and Dex shoots him a dark look, tempered by the fact that he is clearly trying to smile. Nursey ruffles his hair again, destroying the careful gel-job that he had watched Dex do in the mirror fifteen minutes ago.

Dex breathes a laugh. “Are you fucking kidding me, Nurse? I just fixed it!” In retribution, Dex sticks both hands in Nursey’s hair and rumples it. Nursey gasps and pulls out his phone to look at himself. His hair is fucking wrecked, all uneven, with half the curls undone. He looks up to smack Dex, but he’s disappeared. Nursey looks forward to see Dex sprinting ahead, into the hotel.

“WILLIAM JAMES POINDEXTER!” he yells, stuffing his phone into his shorts, “I AM COMING FOR YOU! YOU WILL REGRET THIS!”

He races after Dex, into the hotel, past reception. He nearly makes it into the elevator, but Dex is machine-gunning the close button, and Nursey watches the doors of the elevator close on Dex’s grinning face. He swears violently, making a nearby father put his hands over his daughter’s ears, and bolts into the staircase.

Nuresy takes the stairs two at a time, running up six floors, chest heaving. He doesn’t know where the hell his energy is coming from after he spent twenty-two minutes skating until his lungs ached, but he doesn’t give a shit. William Poindexter has messed with the wrong man’s hair tonight.

He hurtles into the door to their room with a bang and fumbles his room key out of his pocket, growling into the door, “I’m fucking coming for you, Poindexter. You better say some prayers because I’m going to put the pain on you.”

He finally gets the key to work, but when he slams open the door, the room is empty. He stares into the quiet room, scanning the newly made beds, the neatly arranged luggage, the sterile kitchenette.

The closet with one door ever so slightly ajar.

He stalks over to the closet like a lion hunting his prey and pulls the door open to find Dex standing stock still, his hands clasped over his mouth, his eyes glowing with repressed laughter, his shoulders heaving, his messy hair brushing against the empty clothing rack.

Nursey stares at him, poised to strike, and Dex gives a little whimper of a laugh, muffled by his crossed, freckled hands, which are gripping his face like his life depended on it.

And Nursey, without blinking, without breathing, without thinking, pulls back Dex’s wrists and kisses him.

Dex’s lips are warm and yielding. For a moment, he seems frozen with shock as Nursey presses against him and pulls on his wrists to draw him closer, willing him to move closer, to want him back, to put those strong, lovely hands on his body.

Suddenly Dex’s mouth opens against his and his warm, searching tongue licks into Nursey mouth, and a deep hunger all at once ignites and burns in Nursey’s lungs. He kisses past Dex’s mouth, up his cheek, taking his ear in his mouth and sucking as he reaches to pull Dex’s hips closer. His skin is soft as silk in Nursey’s mouth and he imagines putting his mouth on Dex’s other soft, sensitive places.

Dex moans wordlessly and starts kissing and sucking his way down Nursey’s neck until he reaches the crux of his neck and his shoulder and bites. 

Nursey gasps, and Dex takes advantage of his open mouth to pull his ear away to kiss him again.

Nursey pulls away, trying to speak through his gasps, “Dex,” Dex chases him, kissing his jaw, a hand squeezing on his ass and making him gasp, “Dex!”

“Yeah?” Dex mumbles against the soft skin below his ear.

Nursey moans as Dex’s mouth moves down his neck again. “We should—oh, fuck, shit do that again—we should get, get out of the closet.”

Dex looks up at him, his eyes burning golden, his mouth hung open, his tongue licking slowly at his bottom lip. “Where should we go?”

Nursey runs his thumb up Dex’s zipper, making Dex release a sharp breath. “Bed,” Nursey gasps, so softly he can barely hear the word himself.

Dex’s eyes flick down to the bulge in Nursey sweatpants, then his gaze locks on Nursey eyes as he slowly drags his fingers around the skin of Nursey’s waist. He licks his lips and pants, “Bed.”

***

Nursey wakes up slowly, his body full of a bone-deep sweetness. Everything is warm, from his toes to his nose, and he wants to bury himself back in sleep. But he feels something shift on the bed behind him, and he props himself up to look.

It’s Dex, haloed in fiery red hair, his skin glowing in shades of pink and paler pink against the pure white sheets.

Nursey wants to touch him, maybe on his upturned nose, or his freckled shoulders, or on the softness of his lips.

He reaches, just to brush that fine fur of red on his chest, when he catches sight of his own arm, and his blood chills.

He pulls his arm close staring at the list of familiar names written there. His mothers, his sister, Auntie Chandra. Juan Carlos, Chamarie, Chowder. And no more.

“No,” he breathes.

He rubs his arm, as if hoping to coax the name out from within. “No, nononono.”

No name appears.

Only then does it hit him what he’s done.

He had sex with Dex. Dex, who looked at him like he was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, who touched him like his body was water and he was starving for drink, who cried out his name like it was the dearest, sweetest word he knew. Who was not his soulmate.

He’s been here before, back when he dated, in Freshman and Sophomore year. He’d tried, he’d really tried, to get over Juan Carlos. He’d dated boys and girls and non-binary folk, letting them in, holding them close, falling in love. And one by one, those relationships failed. Shit, even the one with Chowder, his actual soulmate, failed.

And every time, the post-breakup spiral was darker. It would start with missing Juanca, and he’d start talking to him and write miserable poetry and the depression would settle into his stomach like a rock. With the early ones, that was all it had been. But in sophomore year, he’d talk to Juan Carlos more than anybody else. He’d have to beg his professors to give him extensions on his writing assignments. The depression would become major depression. Dangerous depression.

It would get so bad that when he told his therapist he had stopped trying to have romantic relationships, she didn’t even fight him.

He’d promised himself that he’d never do that to himself again. And now he was lying in bed with Dex, his teammate, his roommate, his friend. One of his best friends.

The breakup with Dex would be like none of the others. Not only would he lose Dex, he’d fuck with the whole team. He might lose Chowder. They’d have to divide the team between them. His whole world would fall apart while he spiraled into deep, horrible darkness.

And a breakup with Dex was inevitable. If being in too far love with Dex and having sex with him after they won a semifinal together didn’t make them soulmates, how could they be soulmates? And if they weren’t soulmates, it wouldn’t work. It couldn’t. No one but a soulmate would put up with Derek Malik Nurse for the rest of their life.

Suddenly, Dex shifts closer, eyes still closed, and reaches out a hand to brush Nursey’s skin. His touch is delicate and gentle. Nursey traces his own fingers up Dex’s hand, and the pale fingers twine in his own, seemingly of their own accord.

Dex smiles in his sleep and sighs, “Derek,” with utter contentment.

Nursey’s chest aches, like his heart is actually ripping itself in two inside him. “Will,” he breathes.

Sufjan’s words come back to him. _That one breaks hearts for fun._

His eyes blur with tears. In a last ditch attempt, he holds Dex’s hand to his cheek and closes his eyes.

_Allah, I beg you. Please, please, please, give him to me. I love him so much. He makes me so happy, and I think he cares deeply for me. Please. Give me this._

He lowers Dex’s hand from his cheek without opening his eyes. He doesn’t want to see. He knows God is not the business of granting wishes. Finally, he makes himself open his eyes and looks at his arm.

No new name.

He tucks Dex’s hand back into the sheets and slides off the bed. He pulls clothes out of his duffel and takes a shower. He gets dressed in the bathroom.

But when he tries to brush his teeth, he catches his own eye in the mirror. Then he sinks onto the ground and cries and cries and cries.

***

He waits on the other bed. He refuses to make Dex wake up alone. He scrolls through Instagram, Twitter, and even resorts to Facebook before Dex wakes up.

Dex does his little grumbling routine when his alarm goes off. Nursey watches him fumble for his phone and flop back on his pillows, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.

Then Dex looks at him, and Nursey’s heart stops.

Dex’s face shifts from gentle to confused. “Derek?” Just in that word, Nursey can hear how vulnerable, how delicate Dex feels.

Nursey doesn’t have words. It feels like all the air has left his lungs.

As Dex looks at him, registering that he is fully dressed and sitting on the still-made other bed, Nursey can see on his face the dawning comprehension of what is happening. What Nursey is doing to him.

“Nursey,” he says, his face raw with pain.

“Dex, I can’t. I’m sorry.” He can’t look away from Dex’s hurt. He can’t let himself. He did this to Dex; he should feel the repercussions of his mistakes.

Dex stares at him pleadingly, as if willing Nursey to come back. To curl back inside Dex’s arms and be happy again. But Nursey doesn’t move, and finally Dex looks away. His expression turns wooden. “It’s fine. I get it.”

Nursey pleads, “No, you don’t—it’s, it’s complicated, I—”

“Nursey,” Dex interrupts, “I don’t want to talk about it.” He looks up with steely eyes. “Can you go?”

Nursey heads down to breakfast feeling like a black hole is opening up inside his ribcage.

***

Warm ups go shockingly well. He and Dex are able to work well together, almost as usual, even though Dex won’t meet his eye, and he can’t really stand to look at Dex either. Their years of experience skating together carry them through.

The game is when the disaster starts.

They start talking again, primarily to yell at each other.

“Nurse, what the hell was that?!” “I was skating around literally the entirety of Denver, Poindexter, I couldn’t make it in time. Would you fucking chill?” “Are you shitting me?”

“Can you please look at me when I call your fucking name!” “I was busy, Nurse.” “I had the fucking puck, you dick!”

The game is one of the most intense Nursey has ever played. There are checks flying left and right, violations aren’t being called, and the puck is flying so fast every shift feels like two, and he and Dex are fucking it right up. Their passes aren’t connecting; they leave huge open spaces on their side of the ice; and Denver’s two first-period goals happen during their shifts.

The break between first and second period is a mercy. They’re tied three-three, thanks to some amazing goals by Whiskey and Bitty. The team seems excited, hopeful. In the chaos of the game, they don’t seem to have noticed that he and Dex are a train wreck. However, Coach Hall pulls him and Dex aside and just says, “Get it together, boys.” Nursey supposes miserably that that’s how coaches earn their salaries: by noticing when their players are falling the fuck apart.

Dex came in early that morning and switched stalls with Louis, so Nursey is sitting next to Louis, vaguely listening to him chatter excitedly, trying not to think that his mistake is going to cost the team the Final.

He checks his phone and finds a text from Aisha,

_this game is so exciting! We are having a great time._

_(p.s. i think mom is coming around on your boy. she’s in love with his mom.)_

He looks through the photos Aisha’s sent him. She took a selfie of herself and their parents and Waigong and Waipo. His heart squeezes—Mom and Ishee are wearing matching Samwell hijabs, and Mama is decked out in maroon and white from her sweater to her shoes. Waigong is wearing a Samwell baseball cap.

The next photo is of their whole section. His parents somehow found Chowder and Dex’s families, and they’re all sitting together. He can see both of Dex’s sisters and a few Chow cousins, too. His Mom is sitting right next to Dex’s mom, and the next photo is a candid of the two of them chatting like old friends.

He’s not surprised his Mom loves Dex’s mom. She’s a fucking badass who threw her husband out of the house when he rejected their son for being gay. How could Mom not love her?

Nursey closes his eyes and leans his head against the side of his stall. His parents are finally coming around on Dex, and he has just made Dex hate forever in time for them to wreck the Final. Nursey could not have picked a more opportune time to ruin his own life.

He stews in his own misery until he hears the yell for them to get into the tunnel. Bitty screams that this time they’re going to pull ahead permanently. They’re going to wipe the ice with Denver. Then he runs forward and leads them into the second period.

The second period is worse than the first. Denver is playing dirtier, trying to bait them into taking penalties. Dex takes the bait once and gets a five-minute major. He comes back spitting mad, and their game falls apart even more. Nursey can tell that Hall is noticing because he’s sending out Bully and Louis out against Denver’s first line. But Bully and Louis are not ready for the first line, and Denver scores twice.

The locker room is very quiet after the second period. Nursey feels like everyone is staring at him. They must know that he and Dex are the problem. He wonders what they think is wrong with them.

“Boys, this is a rough game,” Hall says to them, standing in the center of the locker room, “Denver’s a good team. And we have a lot of ground to make up. You know that. But this game is not over. They’ve gotten lucky so far. They’ve scored in moments when we’re distracted. When we haven’t been ready to make the plays we’ve practiced. But we are the better team. We’ve watched the tape. Whisk and Bittle have been able to use their defense issues against them and scored three goals already.

“You know what you need to do. Focus on getting on the center aisle. Pay attention to your team. You have the skills to do this. You know you do. Now. You have twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to score two goals. Let’s go, boys.”

They cheer, and Bitty steps into the center. “SMH, we’ve got ten minutes left in this break. Take a moment. Breathe. I know y’all’s blood is up, and that’s a good thing. But you need your heads on straight for this game. I believe in you, I believe in us. I’ll see you on the ice.”

The whole locker room whoops. Dex meets Nursey eye and jerks his head toward the door. Nursey nods and follows him out into the hall.

Dex starts, “Okay, this next period I need you to stay on number 65—”

“I’ve been staying on number 65! Dex, that is not the problem. During the power play—”

“Nurse, don’t talk to me about the fucking power play. If you were—”

Nursey suddenly hears a strange sound and stops. He puts his hand on Dex’s chest to hold him back and puts a finger to his lips. Dex goes quiet. Nursey can hear some kind of whimpering up ahead.

“What is that?” whispers Dex.

Nursey shakes his head; he has no idea, but he walks forward until he gets to the point when the hallway intersects another corridor. He looks looks around the corner and finds the source of the whimpering.

Chowder is curled up against the wall, head bent into his goalie pads, his shoulders convulsing gently, his body rocking back and forth.

“C?” asks Dex softly, his head somewhere just above Nursey’s shoulder. Chowder doesn’t answer.

Nursey approaches slowly and kneels next to Chowder’s curled form. “Chowder, baby?” he murmurs. When Chowder’s bulging eyes flick up and meet his for just a moment before he curls in tighter, Nursey suddenly understands.

He looks up at Dex, who is still standing behind him. “Dex, he’s having a panic attack.”

Dex’s eyes widen with understanding. He looks at Chowder, then back at Nursey.

“Okay. What do you need, Nursey?”

“What?”

“Nurse.” Dex looks him right in the eye, speaking carefully, “You are the one who knows about panic attacks. You know how to fix this. What do you need to make Chowder feel better?”

Nursey has no idea what is happening. Chowder is on the floor, rocking back and forth. A second ago he and Dex were almost screaming at each other, and now Dex is looking at him with complete trust. And Nursey needs to do something. Dex is waiting for him to do...something.

Dex kneels next to him. “Nursey. Don’t freak out on me. Tell me, what do you do to fix panic attacks?”

“You do breathing exercises, and sometimes you take meds.”

Dex nods slowly. “Okay. What do you need so you can do those things for Chowder?”

Nursey’s brain finally grinds back into action. He has to help Chris get through a panic attack. “Uhhh, I need time. And water. And the circular orange pills in the smallest pocket of my bag.”

Dex nods. “You got it.” Then he disappears around the corner, and Nursey turns back to face Chowder. He takes a deep breath. He’s done this before; he’s done it for Juan Carlos, he’s done it for Day, now he’ll do it for Chowder.

“Hey, baby. It’s your local neighborhood Nursey here. Can you hear me?”

With a shuddering breath, Chowder nods.

“That’s great, honey. We’re already halfway there. Now, don’t you worry. I’ve been here before, and I’m gonna help you out. I’m gonna take your hands, okay?”

Chowder’s fingers twitch toward him, and Nursey takes his hands in his own and squeezes. “Fucking killing it, baby. Now, I want you breath with me, okay?”

Chowder doesn’t look up, but Nursey can see a minute nod.

“We’re gonna start with threes. It’s gonna go just like this: in, two, three, out, two, three, in, two, three, out, two, three…”

It takes a bit, but Chowder gets to breathing in threes. His eyes emerge from beneath his goalie pads, and Nursey holds his gaze.

Nursey is just transitioning him into six-count breaths when Dex appears in the corner of his eye, holding water and a clutch of small orange bottles and panting like he’s been doing sprints.

Without breaking eye contact with Chowder, Nursey says, “Put that stuff next to me and breathe with us.”

Dex places the water bottle and the pill bottles next to him and sits against the wall with his shoulder pressed against Chowder’s. They all breathe together for a minute, and when Chowder has fully reached a six-count and his chin is resting on top of his pads, Nursey hands him the water and extracts a small orange pill from one of the bottles. “This is a drug called Clonazepam, made for helping quell anxiety attacks. If taken too much, it can be addictive, so this is a one-time thing, but if you want to take it, I can give it to you.”

Chowder pauses, then nods and takes the pill. As he’s drinking, Nursey screws on the bottle cover, and Dex tells them, “I talked to Hall and Murray. They’re getting a five minute delay, and Osey’s warmed up so you have some extra time, C.”

Chowder gives a small smile and says softly, “You guys are the best.”

Nursey rests his hand on Chowder’s knee. “You’re the best.”

Chowder smiles and leans his head against Nursey’s hand. For a long moment they sit quietly. Nursey watches Chowder breathe steadily, his mind strangely blank. His whole world seems to be in the five foot cube around their three bodies. The only feelings in his world are the damp of Chowder’s knee and forehead against his hand and the hard concrete of the floor against his bones. Dex reaches over and strokes C’s hair. He watches Dex’s hand make long gentle movements, and when he glances over at him, Dex offers a small smile.

Finally, Chowder asks, “How much time do we have?”

Dex pulls his hand away to check his phone. “Two minutes.”

Nursey asks Chowder, “Do you want to come to the bench with us or stay in the locker room?”

Chowder considers for a moment then says decidedly, “Bench.”

“Okay.” Nursey and Dex each take one of Chowder’s hands, and together they pull him off the ground. “We better run for it.”

They sprint through the locker room to grab their helmets and gloves, then run down the tunnel to the bench, pulling on their skates as they go. As soon as they’re out, Murray nods at them. “Poindexter. Nurse. First shift.”

They jam their helmets on their heads and jump over the boards onto the ice. Nursey skates into position just in time for puck drop.

And suddenly, everything is right again. He knows where Dex is at every second, and they keep the puck so far from their goal that Osey doesn’t have to make any saves at all.

Whiskey scores a wraparound, and when the puck next drops, Chowder is in the net again. Meanwhile Denver desperately tries to find space, but they just can’t stay in Samwell’s zone. Nursey and Dex are a seamless team, ferrying the puck back onto Denver’s ice time after time.

Then Tango takes a dirty check, and just like that, Samwell’s on the power play. At Murray’s word, he and Dex burst out from the bench. They skate down the ice like mad men, passing fast and loose until, in a beautiful tic-tac-toe, Louis scores. Nursey with the assist, Dex with the secondary.

Now they’re tied up with the score at five-five, and Nursey is skating so fast he can feel his thighs burn. Every shift he and Dex spend on the bench is a relief and a torture. Adrenaline is making it impossible to sit still. He watches Chowder make an incredible save with just the tip of his glove, and he beats his stick against the boards so hard that Dex catches his arm, grinning and yelling, “Don’t break it! You need that!”

Suddenly, there’s only thirty seconds left on the clock, and it seems like all of Denver is bearing down on them. Denver has pulled their goalie; they know that they won’t win an even strength overtime against Samwell. Nursey is scrabbling for the puck in the insane crush of bodies, and he can almost feel Dex pushing and screaming at their biggest player, when the puck disappears and he nearly has a heart attack right there. He raises his head to find it, and sees Bitty, racing down the ice toward the empty net.

A couple of Denver’s skaters try to chase him down, but it’s a done deal. Bitty is faster than any of them could ever dream to be. With two seconds left, Bitty scores, and the cannons explode with maroon and white confetti. The ice is covered in paper as all of SMH sprints to center ice and crashes into an enormous pile. Nursey’s whole world is maroon uniforms and screaming.

Strong arms are pulling him out of the pile, and he turns to find Dex, again, and they hug so tight Nursey has to push him off. “You’re gonna bruise my ribs again!” he yells in his ear, and Dex laughs.

The pose for a million photos, and their families flood the ice. He gets hugged by every single parent of SMH. His sister takes like a hundred selfies and Facetimes in Musa so he can yell his congratulations through the phone from Beijing. When they finally leave the ice, he’s pulled for press. Some of the reporters in the conference room are his favorite sports writers, so he gets a little star struck, but Bitty starts talking and Nursey just follows his lead.

When the blur of press is done, he, Coach Hall, Bitty, Chowder, Whiskey, Dex, and Louis meet their parents outside, and they all walk back to the hotel in a huge, chattering crowd. Bitty is chasing after Chowder’s little cousins as they run across the park, pretending they’re skating, and Aisha is deep in conversation with Dex’s sister, Ellie, and his Waipo has her arm wrapped tightly around him and is chatting with Chowder’s grandmother in Chinese. Every once in a while, someone screams, “Champions!” and everyone laughs. It’s overwhelming and wonderful.

They say goodbye to Hall and their parents on the way into the hotel and then head up to the team party. They’re all too tired to get up to much, but Bitty puts on some Beyoncé, and they have a good time. Nursey dances even though his muscles kind of want to never move again. He loses pretty badly at a poker game with the Waffles because he forgets to control his facial expressions. Finally, when Chowder is conked out on Ford’s bed, Bitty sends them all packing.

When he and Dex get back to their hotel room, he just flops straight into bed. Dex, being the person who he is, goes to brush his teeth.

Nursey is just starting to feel the edges of his brain go fuzzy when he hears Dex yelling from the bathroom. “Nursey! Nursey! NURSEY GET THE FUCK IN HERE!”

Nursey tries to slide out of bed but ends up rolling onto the floor with a thump. “Ow. Coming, I promise.” He hobbles up to his feet and lurches over to the bathroom. “Whassup, Dex?” he asks, leaning against the doorframe.

Dex moves to stand next to him and shows him his arm. Without thinking, he reads the names written there, starting from the earliest, at his elbow: _Elizabeth Mary Kelly, Elizabeth Irene Poindexter, Myra Kathleen Poindexter, Bree Diane Kelly,_ _周夢林_ _, Derek Malik Nurse._

“Oh, fuck!”He brings his own forearm up to his face so fast, he hits himself in the nose. Dex laughs. He curses and pulls back his sleeve to find the name, written in fine, old-fashioned cursive, _William James Poindexter._

He looks up at Dex, who stares back, eyes wide with bewilderment.

Nursey swallows. He has no idea what to say. Today has been the biggest emotional rollercoaster of his life, and he has no energy left to deal with this insanity. Fuck.

Dex breaks the silence. “Do you want do this tomorrow?”

“God, yes. I’m so tired.” Nursey could kiss him. He admonishes his sex drive for being an idiot.

“Then, I’m gonna finish washing up and go to bed.”

“Chill. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

And with that promise, Nursey slumps back into bed and falls asleep immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: Slut-shaming, anxiety attack, intense intimate contact (no actual sex, though)


	7. Chapter 7

Dex wakes up to a soft crinkling sound and an overwhelming will not to move a single muscle in his body. He has never been so sore in his life, but there is something stuck between his face and his pillow.

Eventually he picks up his head and peels a piece of paper off his cheek, even though his shoulders are fucking pissed about the whole enterprise. He opens his eyes to the dim hotel room and reads the note:

_Want to go for a walk? I’ll be in the lobby —DMN_

The memory of last night runs through him like he stuck a safety pin in a light socket. “Jesus Christ,” he groans. He rolls out of bed because he doesn’t think his abs can really handle sitting up right now and goes to take a shower.

He stands in the hot water, willing his muscles to relax and trying to get his brain to think coherent thoughts. He can’t walk into this blind. He needs a play.

Well, it’s really the same play as last time with Chowder. He has a crush on a guy who doesn’t feel the same way. Maybe it stings more this time because this time the guy isn’t straight and they’ve already had sex, but it’s basically the same.

His dick takes this opportunity to remember that it was really good sex. His dick is a moron.

But, even though he knows exactly what is coming to him, he can’t help but try to look nice. He puts on the green flannel that makes his hair look nice and the dark brown pants that go nicely with the work boots that Nursey keeps trying to steal from him. He spends too long gelling his hair. Every time he catches his eye in the mirror, he realizes he’s being an idiot. He’s going downstairs for Nursey to tell him he’s not interested in dating. They’ve already had sex; dressing a little nicer than usual will not change how Nursey thinks of him. But then he just keeps going, even choosing his Samwell red socks because they contrast so nicely with the green shirt.

He finally makes himself stop messing with his hair, grabs his coat, and heads downstairs. Luckily the elevators are working again because he thinks his legs might have just given up halfway down the stairs.

He spots Nursey almost as soon as he’s out of the elevator, sitting in one of the lobby chairs with a little paper plate of pastries, scrolling through his phone and sipping a cup of coffee.

Dex ducks behind a large potted plant and grits his teeth, considering whether he could just go back upstairs and hide in his bed. He’s not sure he can face this. Nursey is wearing the olive green beanie that makes his eyes look all bright and mossy, tugged back to show his curls, and the big comfy navy blue turtleneck his grandma got him for Christmas that always has tons of extra fabric gathered around his elbows, like he’s some kind of cuddly sweater Michelin man with perfect abs.

Dex is not sure he’s strong enough to face that beautiful man saying he doesn’t want him. But he has to.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, then steps into the lobby and crosses over to Nursey. “Hey,” he greets him, as casually as possible.

Nursey seems to have a full-body spasm: he spills half his coffee, flings his phone into the air. and just barely keeps his seat on the armchair. “Shit!”

“I’ll get it.” Dex chases down Nursey’s phone while he pats at his corduroys with napkins.

When Dex gets back, Nursey looks up at him with wide eyes and takes back his phone. “Hey, Dex.”

“Hey.”

“How ya doing?”

“Well, I’m feeling pretty lucky to not be covered in coffee.”

Nursey huffs a laugh. “Yeah. Um, these are for you?” He gestures to the plate of pastries on the table next to him and the cup of coffee standing next to it. “I raided the breakfast bar.”

“Thanks.” Dex gathers up his food and takes a sip of the coffee—still pretty warm, though pretty bad, even for hotel coffee.

Nursey stands up and dawdles in front of his chair as Dex drinks. “Do you, um, want to go for a walk? It’s nice out.”

Dex follows him out into a cold, bright April morning. There’s a park outside the hotel, and Dex works his way through the pastries silently, waiting for Nursey to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t,” again But they get to the edge of a little pond, and Nursey still hasn’t spoken, so Dex suggests, “Wanna walk around?”

Nursey nods, and they start off around the perimeter of the water. After five more minutes of silence, Dex can’t stand waiting anymore. “So, we’re soulmates.”

Nursey nods again and says quietly, “Yeah.”

Dex waits again, but Nursey doesn’t say anything. He’s just staring at the ground.

Dex takes a deep breath and says as sincerely as he can, “Nurse, it’s okay. I’m fine with being friends. We don’t have to date or anything. What we have is great.”

Nursey finally looks at him, his eyes wide. “You, you don’t want to date?”

Dex does not really understand what that is supposed to mean. “Well, of course I don’t want to date if you don’t want to date. Dating is kind of a mutual thing.”

“But what if I do want to?”

“Want to what?”

“Want to date.”

“I mean, obviously it would be different if you did want to date, but I’m not sure how hypotheticals really matter—”

“Oh my God, Dex,” Nursey nearly yells, grabbing his wrist and pulling him until they are facing each other, “I want to date you!”

“What?” Dex stares at him. Something is happening here that is not really adding up. He feels like his brain is segfaulting.

Nursey covers his face with his hands. “Dex, I _like_ you. Therefore I want to _date_ you.” He looks up at Dex with slightly wild eyes.

“But you left. Why did you leave if you like me?!” Dex had sworn he’d be calm about this, but he can hear the emotion in his own voice.

Nursey bites his lip and looks down the path. “That’s… complicated.” His eyes flick back to look at Dex. “I can explain it to you, if that’s okay?”

“That would be good. Yeah.”

They start walking again. Nursey seems to be gathering his thoughts, and Dex tries to understand what the hell he is feeling right now. He thinks he should be happy right now—Nursey wants to date him! But Nursey also walked out the morning after they had sex, and that still hurts. He had been so, so happy and then Nursey had said, “I can’t,” and Dex didn’t realize how much that still hurt until this moment. He’s not really even sure what Nursey could say to make it better.

Nursey finally starts, “When I got to college I really wanted to date. And I know that’s weird because my boyfriend just died. But I missed having a person who was my person really bad. But, I didn’t get into anything serious until Chowder. And when he and I broke up, I was really sad and I missed Juan Carlos, but that was, like, not surprising.”

Dex does not understand why they are talking about Chowder right now, but he listens. Nursey would not tell him this for no reason.

“Then, after Chowder,” he continues, “I started dating other people. I dated a couple more people in freshman year. And the break ups always sucked. Like, dating made me happy, but then afterward I’d miss Juan Carlos even more. And then–“ he takes a deep breath, “–then, in sophomore year, I dated some other people. And some of them were pretty serious.”

Dex remembers them. Ian, Chiron, Jacqueline.

“But I started realizing that the breakups were getting worse and worse. Like, every time I broke up with someone, it would take longer to get over it. And the grief would come back harder. And the depression afterward would get worse. And, it started to be that I’d have a break up and it would be major depression bad.”

Dex feels suddenly cold, but all Dex can say is, “Nursey….”

“So, when I slept with you, it was a mistake. Because I knew we shouldn’t date. A break up with you would be so much worse than any of them. We’re best friends and we have the whole team and the writing crew and Chowder. It’d be a disaster.”

There’s a bench nearby, and Dex taps Nursey’s shoulder. “Can we sit down? I need to think for a minute.”

Nursey nods, and they sit. Dex covers his face with his hands and tries to process. Things are kind of adding up. Nursey had dated pretty regularly until the middle of last year. Then he stopped. Dex hadn’t thought much of it at the time. Lots of the guys on SMH don’t date much. But something about Nursey’s explanation doesn’t quite make sense.

“Okay, can I ask a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Why did you think we would break up? You talk about it like it’s a foregone conclusion.” Dex looks up to see Nursey staring at the ground, looking mildly constipated.

“Dex, I–” he swallows hard and glances up at Dex nervously, “–I have baggage.”

“Alright.” This is not a huge surprise. He’s heard a lot about Nursey’s baggage, at this point.

“Bro, you don’t get it. My baggage is weird. It scares people away, makes them look at you differently, and—” Nursey is looking at him with blazing, shining eyes, his voice thick. “And, like, I really like you Dex, but sometimes you have to make the smart choice, even if you hate it.”

Dex looks across the cold, gray pond. The trees here are all still bare. He tries to parse all the things he’s feeling, like hanging each of them up on the limb of a tree.

He’s still hurt that Nursey left yesterday. He’s hurt that Nursey didn’t trust him to accept his baggage, whatever it is. They’ve been teammates and friends for three years. He thought he’d proven himself to be a good friend.

But, he needs to look at this from Nursey’s perspective. Nursey’s side of the story, as usual, is complicated, and very different from his own.

Nursey chose to leave because he felt that dating Dex was too much of a risk. Nursey, it seems, has history that even Dex doesn’t know about—history that has driven away a lot of people.

He can’t really imagine what kind of baggage would make someone give up brilliant, beautiful Derek Nurse. Unless he’s, like, a mass murderer. But Dex feels pretty sure that if someone tells you they’re a mass murderer, you don’t just break up with them. You call the police. So, whatever the reason is, Dex doubts it’s good enough. And those people were just too goddamn stupid to realize how lucky they were to be with Nursey.

But that’s not how Nursey would see it. Dex knows that Nursey lets other people’s opinions affect him too much; he’s sensitive like that. And Dex can completely see how Nursey would think that, after some fuckers decided they didn’t want to be with him, no one would want to be with him.

Nursey interrupts his train of thought, “We don’t have to fight about it. Like you said, nothing has to change.”

Dex realizes his fists are balled with anger, and he forces them to relax and glances over at Nursey. He looks so sad, but his jaw is set with determination. He has that look he gets when he knows he’s right, and he’s ready to destroy every single argument Dex has for him. It’s been so long since Dex last saw it, he almost feels nostalgic.

And Nursey _is_ right. He’s allowed to protect himself when he’s scared, even if it’s not fun for Dex.

“Nursey,” he starts slowly—he really needs to get this right—“I’m not angry at you. I’m angry because–” he breathes and closes his eyes for a moment to focus, “– I’m angry at those people because they made you feel like that.”

He takes a deep breath and focuses on getting his words exactly right. “But, if you want, I’d love to prove them wrong. You are an amazing person, and anybody would be incredibly lucky to be with you.”

He turns to meet Nursey’s wide, staring eyes. Nursey opens his mouth as if to say something, but no words come out. They kind of just stare at each other for a while, until Nursey whispers, “ _‘Kay_.”

That makes Dex laugh. “Derek Nurse, what a motherfucking wordsmith.”

Nursey gives him a dirty look. “I fucking hate you.” Then, before Dex can chirp him again, Nursey leans in and kisses him.

Nursey’s mouth is impossibly soft and his chapstick tastes vaguely fruity and his kiss is gentle but insistent and wanting, and Dex kind of turns his brain off and just lets Nursey have whatever he wants.

And then Dex’s phone starts screaming from his pocket. He pulls away, unsure how long they’ve been making out on this bench but sure that it wasn’t long enough, and checks his phone. It’s the alarm he set on Friday for when he and Nursey should be packed and ready to eat lunch today. He does some quick mental math, and turns to Nursey, “Nursey, we should go finish packing so we can eat some protein before we have to get on the bus.”

Nursey pouts. “Your tongue is full of protein. I feel very satisfied.”

“That’s gross. C’mon.” Dex stands and holds his hand out to pull Nursey to his feet.

Nursey doesn’t let go of his hand after he’s stood up, so they head back around the pond with their fingers twined together. Occasionally, he even leans his head against Dex’s, and Dex thinks his heart might beat out of his chest.

They’re quiet until they can see the hotel through the trees, when Nursey suddenly tugs on Dex’s arm to stop him. “Will, um, can we talk for a minute?”

“Yeah?”

Nursey is chewing on his lip. “How do you feel about going kind of…slow?”

“In what way?”

“Like, I’m not sure I’m ready to tell all our friends.”

Dex has a brief vision of spending the entire five-hour bus ride back getting chirped by every single member of SMH. “Oh. Good point.”

Nursey laughs a little. “I mean, yes, right now is objectively a terrible time to tell the team we’re dating. But like, generally, it’d be nice to have some time to just date, between us. Without having to be a couple for everyone else.”

“That sounds nice. But–” Dex raises an eyebrow, “–I’m not sure we can hide this from C. He 100% will notice.”

“Shit. You’re right. Okay. Tell him when we get back to Samwell?”

“Chill.” Dex leans in to kiss Nursey’s cheek, and he thinks he sees Nursey’s cheeks turn dark.

Nursey pushes him away, laughing, “Get away from me, we’re supposed to be platonic and shit.”

“Oh yeah? Make me!” He grins and makes as if he’s going to try to kiss Nursey again, and Nursey laughs and runs ahead of him down the path.

“Eat my dust, you ginger fucker!” he yells, and Dex chases him all the way back to the hotel.

***

The bus ride home is kind of torture. Dex strategically sits in a different row than Nursey so he doesn’t accidentally stare at him like a love-struck fool the whole time. But even as Dex looks at Swedish memes with Louis or explains the finer details of the Maine climate to Whiskey, he occasionally hears Nursey’s voice float over the chattering crowd and remembers that he could theoretically be sleeping on Nursey’s shoulder, and he has some regrets.

When the team gets back to Faber, there’s a crowd waiting for them, and Dex gives some bona fide _autographs_ while he’s walking in, which is some trippy shit.

They drop off their stuff, and the team disperses with promises to all see each other at the Victory Kegster on Friday. The residents of the Haus walk back together, and Dex listens as they discuss the weirdness of having to sign things like famous people; he’s buzzing a little bit from the strange, anxious high of the crowd and the knowledge that Chowder is about to find out that he and Nursey are _dating_.

But everyone is dragging their feet, and by the time they make it to the Haus, it’s time for Nursey to pray, and they all need to eat soon anyway. Dex, as one of the only members of the Haus who actually finished all his work ahead of this week, resigns himself to cooking dinner. He thinks it may be the fastest mac and cheese he’s ever made in his life.

Finally, finally, everyone’s eaten, put their stuff away, and finished praying, and he, Nursey, and Chowder are heading upstairs. He’s wondering if maybe he should ask Nursey for a rain check on telling Chowder because he really kinda just wants to make out for a while, but then when they’re at the top of the stairs, Chowder asks, “Hey, guys, do you have a minute?”

Dex follows Nursey and Chowder into Chowder’s room, ready to say, “yes, we’re dating,” but as soon as the door is closed, Chowder tackles them to the floor.

“GUYYYYYYSSS!” Chowder bawls, pinning them against his Sharks rug, “Thank you so so sosososo much! Oh my God, you are the best friends ever. I love you guys so much.”

“We love you, too, C,” Nursey manages to say through the crush.

Chowder keeps talking into their shoulders, “I thought I was never going to make it back onto the ice, and I was gonna fail the team, but you came and got me! I owe you for the rest of my life.”

Dex recovers his breath to say, “You don’t owe us, C. Anytime.”

Chowder sits back on his heels to look at them. “Well, I’m here for you guys. I know it was an exhausting weekend for everyone, so, like, I’m here for you if you need hugs or Asian candy to get through the week.”

Dex thinks he can see what Chowder’s really getting at. He glances over at Nursey, who is smiling and saying, “Thanks, C,” and doesn’t seem to see it.

Dex raises an eyebrow. “Are you still worried about us, Chowder? We figured it out.”

“Really?” Chowder asks skeptically, dropping his pretense. “Because you did not seem over it today. You didn’t even sit together on the bus.”

Nursey looks between them, and Dex can see the moment he figures it out. “ _Ya Allah! _Chowder! You brought us in here under false pretenses! You were going to yell at us!”

“No! I was just going to ask what happened! You seemed to be having a lot of trouble yesterday, and I just wanted to make sure you two were okay!”

“Uh-huh.” Dex shakes his head with mock disappointment. “Chowder. I think we need to punish you for deceiving us.”

“I fully agree,” adds Nursey.

“Yeah?” Chowder looks between them nervously.

Dex and Nursey exchange a look. Dex thinks they understand each other.

Nursey looks at Chowder solemnly. “I think we’re going to have to do it.”

“You’ve forced our hand,” says Dex.

Nursey shakes his head remorsefully. “We have to say unkind things about the Sharks.”

“Noooooo!” yells Chowder, falling dramatically to the ground.

They pace around him in circles whispering harshly:

“Logan Couture is overrated!”

“Why is Patrick Marleau still playing hockey? He’s ancient!”

“Remember that year the Sharks didn’t choke in the playoffs? Neither can I!”

Chowder pretends to writhe on the ground in spiritual pain.

“They will never be strong enough offensively to win the Stanley Cup!”

“Joe Thornton’s beard is ugly!”

“The 2014 series against the Kings!”

Chowder gives Dex the stink-eye at that one. “Now you’re just being cruel.”

Dex takes his hands and pulls him up. “Sorry, maybe that was too far. Want me to make it up to you?”

“I’m not sure you can,” Chowder huffs, “but give it a try.”

“Well…” Dex starts, glancing over at Nursey to make sure he’s cool with it—he’s smiling at him knowingly, that’s a good sign—and tells Chowder, “Me and Nursey, we’re dating now.”

“We’re soulmates, C.” Nursey grabs Dex’s hand, and Dex is so surprised he nearly pulls away

“WHAAAAAAAT!!!! OH MY GOD! GUYS! This is amazing!” Chowder gives them another bear hug. “I’m so happy! Wait, I need all the deets. Sit down and tell me everything.”

They settle on Chowder’s bed and explain that they found the soulmarks last night after the party and decided to date before lunch this morning. By the time they get to explaining the bus ride,  Chowder just looks at them—Nursey has his hand curled around the nape of Dex’s neck, and Dex keeps nudging Nursey with his knee—and says, “Yeah, the entire team would have figured it out in five minutes.”

They decide to all watch _Kill Bill Vol. 2_ together, and Chowder doesn’t even fine them for cuddling. “But only because I love you both.”

***

Dex has never been in a serious relationship before, really. He used to make out with Devin Walsh, the only gay guy he knew about in his hometown, pretty regularly, but he’s never actually dated someone before. He’s a little unsure about what to do, especially when since he already lives with the person, and it’s one of his best friends.

The sex part is awesome. Every night that week, he comes home and spends at least an hour working on memorizing every part of Nursey’s body and learning all of Nursey’s happy sounds. It turns out Nursey’s neck is _very_ sensitive.

But, on Saturday, he wakes up next to Nursey for the first time, and he starts to realize what the difference between hooking up and dating is.

His first conscious thought is that he is warmer and cozier than he ever remembers being in his life. And his bed smells delicious.

He opens his eyes, and Nursey’s already awake, looking back at him with a sleepy smile. “Good morning, Sexy Dexy,” he says, reaching up to run his fingers through Dex’s hair, “your hair looks like it got in a fight.”

Dex is too tired to think of a comeback, so he just kisses Nursey’s wrist, since it’s just floating in front of his face, and no one else is going to kiss it. Nursey pulls his arm away, and Dex tries to protest, but then Nursey is burying his face against Dex’s chest and murmuring, “You are a very nice boy, Billy Poindexter.”

Dex presses his face into Nursey’s durag and listens to Nursey describe a weird dream he had, thinking he could get used to this.

It doesn’t stop there. Sometimes he just gets random texts from Nursey in the middle of the day that make him feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even though they say stupid shit like, “billlyyyyyyy” and “alsjkjhdf.” One time Dex comes back to the Haus to find Nursey’s left a little bundle of wildflowers on his pillow. Dex fills an old Gatorade bottle with water and puts the flowers on his desk, but he can’t stand it when they start to wilt, so he looks up “how to press flowers” and keeps them in an old binder so he look at them whenever he wants.

Nursey is clearly an old pro at all this romantic stuff, but this is Dex’s first time, so he resolves to just try different things to see what Nursey likes. He puts it in his planner to try a new romantic thing every day. One day he sends Nursey pictures of the pretty red buds on a tree. Another day, he makes Nursey a special batch of his favorite cookies. He has especial luck when he finds a line of poetry that reminds him of Nursey and writes it in one of Nursey’s books on a sticky note—Nursey doesn’t find it for a few days, but when he does he sends Dex a series of texts that are mostly incoherent but are forty percent heart emojis, so that’s pretty excellent.

***

While Dex is really looking forward to telling everyone they’re dating, the next person they end up telling about their relationship is completely by accident. But Dex doesn’t think he’d change it if he could.

Dex is at his desk listening to Elijah describe a cute boy in the seventh grade over the phone when Nursey walks into their room. He doesn’t think anything of it until Nursey kisses his head and says, “Baby, take a break and give me kisses. I had a long day.”

Dex wonders for a second if maybe Elijah didn’t hear it, but then ‘Lijah starts screaming, “OH MY GOD, BILLY DO YOU HAVE A _BOYFRIEND?_ ” so loudly that Dex is sure even Nursey could hear him.

“Um, no?” Dex turns around to find Nursey frozen behind him, his eyes wide. He covers the microphone and whispers, “It’s Elijah.”

Over the phone, Elijah is saying, “He called you ‘baby’! I heard him, Billy!”

Meanwhile, Nursey is cocking his head thoughtfully. “We could tell him. I’d be okay with that.”

But Dex knows that word travels like wildfire in his family, so he takes his hand off the speaker to tell Elijah, “Okay, you can talk to him if you promise not to tell anyone.”

‘Lijah gasps. “Really? Okay, I promise!”

“You’re sure about that? You won’t tell anybody?”

“I swear. I swear on my Xbox.”

“Wow. You swear on your Xbox–” he glances up at Nursey, who is smiling broadly now, “–That’s a big promise. Okay.” Dex turns on the speakerphone and holds it out between them. “He’s gonna say hi.”

Nursey sits in his own desk chair and leans over the phone. “Hi ‘Lijah, it’s me, Derek.”

Elijah starts screaming into the phone and yelling, “OH MY GOD! DEREK NURSE! OH MY GOD, BILLY!” Dex thinks he can hear Elijah running around his room. Nursey is grinning at the phone, and Dex has to bite his fist to stop from laughing. Finally, Elijah interrupts himself to say something that sounds like, “Yeah, Mom, I’m fine. Just saw something on the internet.”

Now that Elijah’s finally calmed down a bit, he starts grilling them about how long they’ve been dating and why they aren’t telling anybody. When he finds out they’re soulmates, he screams again for a few minutes.

They talk until Elijah’s mom—Dex’s Aunt Anna—calls him down for dinner. Dex makes him promise one more time not to tell anyone before he hangs up the phone.

When Dex looks up, Nursey is glowing with happiness. “Dex, I love Elijah so much. He is the sweetest, cutest kid. _Mashallah_. I can’t wait to meet him. I want to meet all your little baby cousins.” He flops onto his bed and motions for Dex to join him.

Dex lies down and kisses Nursey’s cheek. “They’re not such babies anymore. My youngest cousin is ten now.”

Nursey nuzzles into his shoulder. “That’s the best age. They still want to play. And they’re adorable.”

“You like kids, huh?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Nursey says into Dex’s flannel.

“You think you want to have kids someday?” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he knows it’s a mistake. Nursey turns rigid. Shit, Nursey’s probably super uncomfortable. He wanted to go slow, and Dex is asking him about _having kids_ after only a few weeks. Fuck, why is he such an idiot?

He tries to save it. “Sorry, Nursey, that came out wrong. You don’t have to answer that. I’m sorry.”

Nursey looks up at him, but he doesn’t look uncomfortable. He looks…sad? “That’s okay, Dexy. I do want kids someday. Do you? Want kids?” His eyes are all big and oddly shiny, and Dex doesn’t know why this is making Nursey cry, but he sits up and takes one of Nursey’s hands.

“Yeah, someday,” Dex says quietly, squeezing Nursey’s hand, “Is something wrong, Derek?”

Nursey shakes his head and sits up to hug him. “No, I just…I really like you, Will,” he says into Dex’s shoulder.

That doesn’t make any sense to Dex, but he focuses on holding Nursey tight, pressing kisses to Nursey’s neck until he starts cracking jokes about Dex’s sex drive, a sure sign that he’s feeling better.

***

_You think now is a good time to tell the team?_

Dex reads Nursey’s message and scans the room: the team is hanging out, playing Super Smash Bros. and eating the pie Bitty cooked to celebrate finishing his B.A. thesis. Chowder is kicking everyone’s ass as usual, and Whiskey is pulling some weird metagame shit while everyone yells at him.

Dex and Nursey discussed telling the team over the weekend, and this seems as good a time as any—everyone’s here, everyone’s relaxed, and Dex’s checking account is prepared for the assault of fines they’re going to throw at him. _Sounds good. You coming down?_

Nursey replies, _Yeah – just submitting my hw_

Dex settles in to watch another round of Smash, one eye on the staircase. He’s not sure how Nursey is going to do this, but he trusts him. They’d talked last weekend: Nursey has some kind of secret plan for telling the team, and Dex told him that as long as there are no costumes involved, he’s okay with pretty much anything. Nursey grinned. “No worries baby. I think you’ll like it.”

A few more rounds of Smash go by, and Dex doesn’t even notice Nursey come in until he’s sitting on the arm of the couch next to him and saying, “Hey, Dexy.”

Dex looks up to see Nursey giving him a deep purple smile. He wonders if something special happened today—Nursey doesn’t pull out the lipstick often—then Nursey leans down to kiss him neatly on the corner of his mouth.

Nursey pulls back, and Dex can feel at least five members of SMH staring at him, and his cheeks are burning. Nursey surveys his work and says, “Purple is a good color on you, Will.”

The next few minutes are very confused. The Tadpoles are freaking out over Whiskey finally beating Chowder, while Bitty is jumping up and down with excitement and texting all the old members of SMH, the Waffles are falling all over themselves with surprise, and Ollie and Wicky are calculating all the fines they owe for telling the team they’re dating via lipstick. Meanwhile, Chowder has them wrapped in a killer hug. “Guys! Now we can go on double dates! Let me text Cait. Clear your Saturday nights. We’re going OUT!”

Nursey gets Ford to take pictures of them while he kisses lipstick prints on Dex’s face. Ollie and Wicky yell out a new fine for every kiss. It gets pretty expensive fast, but when Dex looks at the pictures of them—him covered in purple lipstick marks, Nursey curled up on his lap, pressing kisses to his skin—Dex is pretty sure it’s worth it.

When everyone settles down to play more Smash, Bitty declares he’s going to bake a celebration pie. Since every minute he spends with Nursey on his lap costs him about a dollar, Dex opts to help.

Dex pulls out a saran-wrapped lump of pie dough from the fridge while Bitty decides what he wants inside it, searching the cabinet and talking quietly to himself, “I think the bittersweet will do…will definitely want whipped cream…oooh, cayenne might be fun…”

When Bitty finally starts pulling ingredients onto the island, Dex asks him, “So, captain, what are we making?”

“Well, I thought I’d combine y’all’s favorite pies, so we’re having a chocolate pumpkin pie.”

“That sounds amazing. What do you want me to do?”

“Blind bake that crust, and I’ll work on the filling. And, Dex?”

“Yeah?”

“You can probably wash all that lipstick off your face. Y’all’ve made your point.”

Dex checks his reflection in the dark window. He can see the little shadows of Nursey’s lips up his cheeks and down his neck and disappearing into his hair. “Nah.  I like ‘em.” He thinks that if he could spend the rest of his life covered in Nursey’s kisses, he would.

Bitty makes a little scoffing sound, but he goes to the stove to melt the chocolate without comment.

When the oven is warm, Dex drapes the crust he’s rolled out into a pie pan, weighs it down with the blind baking sugar Bitty keeps in a mason jar, and slides it into the oven. As he stands back up, Bitty says, “Dex, would you please make some whipped cream? I’ve got some heavy cream left in the fridge, I think.”

“Not at all, Bits.”

He finds the whipping cream and sugar and pours it into the pretty red stand mixer that Jack got Bitty for his birthday. When the cream is starting to froth, Dex sits up on the counter and leans back against the window to breath in the smells. The piecrust smells buttery already, and the filling Bitty is making is cinnamon-y and spicy and delicious.

“Dex,” Bitty says, breaking the quiet, “I’m so happy for you.”

“Thanks, Bits.”

“I remember when you were just an itty-bitty Frog, and you were so nervous about all this. About Samwell, and baking. And now we’re baking you a boyfriend pie!”

“Pie is a major perk of accepting yourself.”

Bitty ignores him. “And with Nursey! Of all people! Y’all used to fight like cats and dogs, and now y’all’re so sweet together!”

Dex slides off the countertop and takes Bitty into a hug. “I know. Thank you, Bitty. For everything.” Everything Dex ever did—learn to bake, come out, get a boyfriend—Bitty did it first. Bitty taught him how to do all of it.

“Of course, honey. Of course.”

***

After Nursey posts the lipstick pictures on his Instagram, word travels around campus pretty fast. The writing crew meets the next day, and as soon as Dex and Nursey show up at Chamarie’s room, Eun Ae yells, “I fucking knew it!” and jumps on Dex to give him a noogie.

Day gathers them both in a hug and cries on their chests. Then they tug Dex away and tell Nursey, “I’m borrowing him for cuddles.” Nursey pouts but lets him go, and Dex spends the whole of writing time with Day curled up in his lap. It’s a little weird, but when they break for editing, Day declares, “I deem him a good cuddler. The two of you will live a beautiful, cuddly life together. You may have your boyfriend back, Nursey,” and Dex feels a little bit like he’s been blessed or something.

They all laugh, and Dex ducks out to go to the bathroom. But, when he’s coming back, he meets Chamarie leaning against the wall outside the door. “Dex, can we talk for a minute?” she asks. It doesn’t sound like ‘no’ is an option.

He stops. “Yeah, of course.”

She crosses her arms and steps up, so close to him their faces are inches apart. She stares at him with eyes that are deadly serious. “Derek is a beautiful soul. He is utterly, indescribably precious to me. Do you understand this?”

He swallows and nods.

“If you hurt him, I will make sure that you suffer.”

He shivers a little. She does not sound like she’s joking. “I won’t hurt him. I swear.”

For a full thirty seconds she stares at him. “Don’t fuck it up, Will.” Then she walks back into her room.

He stays in the hallway for a couple minutes trying to remember how to breathe, then follows her back in.

***

When Dex’s phone buzzes, he’s lying against Nursey’s chest in Nursey’s bed. Dex looks up from his reading to find a text from Myra: _Can we tell Mom yet? I’m DYING!_ Dex scoffs and returns to his reading. Myra and Ellie had figured out that they were dating from Nursey’s Instagram, but in between their texts in all-caps about how they were freaking out, he’d made them promise not to tell his mom. Now they bother him about it constantly, begging him to let them tell her.

“Was that Bitty? Is he finished with dinner?” Nursey asks, picking up his own phone to check.

Dex shakes his head. “Nah. Just my sister asking for the tenth time if she can tell my mom we’re dating.”

He returns to his reading again, but a minute later, Nursey is tapping his shoulder. “Hey, um, Will, can we talk?”

Nursey’s voice is oddly strained. Dex sits up and turns around so he can see Nursey’s face. He seems nervous, which is even stranger. Dex takes one of his hands and kisses it, wishing he could just cuddle away Nursey’s fears. “Yeah, baby, what’s up?”

Nursey just stares at their twined hands for a long time.

Dex is trying to keep calm, but after the first thirty seconds of silence, he knows something is up. Usually when Nursey wants to talk about something, he gives a little preface so Dex knows what the hell is going on. Like when he said, _it’s about the thing with Sufjan,_ after Dex and Sufjan Mirzoyan nearly got into a fight over some stupid shit Sufjan was spouting at a kegster, or when he said, _we should figure out PDA_ , after they realized they didn’t know how much couple-y stuff they wanted to do around campus. Then, after the preface, Nursey usually takes a minute to gather his thoughts. This silence is disconcerting as fuck. What the fuck does it mean? Does Nursey need a break? They’ve only been dating for a month and a half! Are they breaking up? But Nursey’s been so happy. Shit, did Dex fuck up somehow? Jesus, he is such a fucking—

“Dex, what would you do if I was crazy?”

The question is so out of left field, Dex doesn’t understand what Nursey is asking for a few seconds. “What?”

“What would you do if I was crazy?” Nursey is looking at him with calm, sincere eyes, but he’s squeezing Dex’s hand a little too tight.

Dex kisses his hand again. “Baby, you’re not crazy. There’s no such thing as a crazy person.”

Nursey laughs breathily. “I’ve trained you well, Padawan.” He turns over Dex’s hand and starts playing with his palm. “You’ve got a great head line. No surprises there,” he says quietly.

“Derek what’s wrong?” Dex leans so he can see Nursey’s face, but Nursey pulls away.

“It’s just—what if I did something totally delusional? Something that meant I was completely detached from reality?”

Nursey looks in such pain, Dex just wants to hold him close, but instead he considers the question. “I guess I’d want to know if you’ve talked to your therapist about it. That would be the first thing.”

Nursey glances up, seemingly surprised by the answer. “Oh. Um, I’ve talked to her about it.”

“Yeah?” Dex says, as gently as he can, “What did she say?”

“She says it’s okay,” Nursey whispers, looking at him through his eyelashes.

“Then it sounds like it’s nothing to worry about.”

Nursey is suddenly anguished, and it sounds painful when he says, “Dex, you don’t get it. I’m going to tell you, and you’re going to think I’m crazy! Even if you don’t want to! And then you’re going to leave me.”

Dex squeezes his hand and tries to stay calm, trying not to imagine what kind of delusional thoughts could make Nursey this afraid. “I’m not going to leave you Nursey!”

For a long moment, the words seem caught in Nursey’s throat. Finally, he says quietly, “Sometimes I talk to Juan Carlos. Like, I pretend he’s with me, and I talk to him.”

Dex is a little confused—is this the big secret? “How do you talk to him?”

“I just kind of imagine he’s there? I pretend he can hear me, but he doesn’t say anything, or do anything.”

“Sorry, I meant, what do you talk to him about?”

Nursey laughs nervously, “Oh, um, just like, how I’m doing. What I’ve been up to. That kind of stuff.”

Dex leans forward to kiss Nursey’s temple. “Baby, that’s so normal. I used to talk to my Grandma Beth all the time after she died.”

Nursey looks at him with big sad eyes. “But sometimes I pretend he’s giving me hugs or cuddling me when I go to sleep.”

Dex’s heart hurts. “You need hugs. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.” He presses kisses to Nursey’s forehead and his nose and his lips, anything he can reach. “I used to pretend I was watching Jeopardy with Grandma Beth and have whole conversations with myself about how handsome Alex Trebek was.”

Nursey laughs and leans his forehead against Dex’s. Dex enjoys the warmth of Nursey against him. Finally, Nursey says, “You’re really okay with it?”

“Yeah, of course.”

They’re quiet for a long time, just leaning their heads together and breathing slowly,  occasionally squeezing each other’s hands.

Then Nursey says, “I thought you said when I first met ‘Lijah that you’d never talked about cute boys before.”

“Um, yeah?” What the fuck kind of topic change was that?

Nursey leans back and gives him a sly look. “Then what were you doing when you were talking to your grandma about Alex Trebek?”

“Oh, fuck off, Nurse!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Intense grief


	8. Epilogue

Nursey rakes through the basket again. Sandwiches. Wine. Pie. Plates for the pie. A knife for the pie. “Bitty, I still feel like I’m forgetting something.”

Bitty sips his lemonade and gives Nursey a skeptical look from his perch on the countertop. “Honey, he’s going to be here in a minute. What you’ve got, you’ve got. If you’re missing some cutlery, it’s not going to ruin your date.”

Nursey flails his arms helplessly. “But what if it does!” Nursey’s been planning this for a week. He asked his sister, his parents, and even his brother-in-law for advice. He can’t fail at the final hurdle.

Suddenly, the front door of the Haus opens, and the voice of Chris Chow lets out a joyous cry, “We’re done!”

Nursey quickly covers the picnic basket before he turns to see Chowder, Tango, and Dex standing in the hallway, shedding their backpacks and getting high-fives from Ollie and Wicky. Tango heads upstairs to unpack his and Whiskey’s stuff, but Dex and Chowder come into kitchen. “How’d it go?” Nursey asks, taking Chowder into a hug.

Behind Chowder, Dex shrugs. “Honestly, it was only marginally less of a disaster than yesterday.”

“He brought the tests today, though,” Chowder chimes in.

“Yeah. He brought the first eight pages of the test,” Dex says, “Some poor TA had to go print the last two pages for all forty of us while we did the first eight. I don’t know how she did it. The printing center is closed on Saturdays after the semester ends.”

“ _Ya Allah_ , talk about a fuck up.” Nursey hooks his arm around Dex’s. “You still up for our date?”

“I wouldn’t ditch you now. I got dressed up and everything.” Dex smiles and glances over at Chowder and Bitty, who are chatting animatedly, and puts a soft, delicate, rose petal of a kiss on his cheek. No one yells “fine,” so it sounds like they got away. “Do you want to go now?”

Nursey picks up the basket and grabs his wrist. “C’mon. We’re going for a walk.”

Samwell is gorgeous today. Finally, the weather is warm, and the very air seems to be suffused with the golden glow of summer. The trees are decked out in new green leaves and the quad is bright with flowers. The whole of campus is decked out in red _Class of 2017_ banners, and there are parents and seniors milling around everywhere, having last-minute tours of campus before graduation tomorrow.

“I thought we were having a ‘private, intimate luncheon,’ Derek. There are people literally everywhere,” Dex complains as they walk around some people slacklining between trees on the quad.

“Oh, ye of little faith. I promise. We’ll be fine. I know the perfect spot.” He’d gotten it from his parents.

When he Skyped his Mom and Mama on Monday to tell them he and Dex were dating, they’d interrogated him for, like, an hour for all the details of how they got together, how they got their soulmarks, and how the relationship was going. At the end, he asked, a little nervously, “So, um, is this going to be okay? With you?”

His parents shared a look, and Mom smiled at him. “Derek, you sound so happy. Of course we’re okay with it.” Internally he breathed a sigh of relief, then Mom continued, “Especially because it means we get to hang out with Miss Bree Kelly.”

“Bree Kelly?”

“His mom, Derek.   _Ya Allah_ , what kind of boyfriend are you?” Mama raised an eyebrow at him.

“Actually, I wanted to ask you for some advice about that….” He asked them for suggestions on how to have a perfect romantic date, and Mom waxed lyrical about all their best dates, and Mama emailed her Romantic Date Checklist to him, which was kind of a lot. Then, when he told them he didn’t know where to take Dex because they don’t do nice restaurants (yet), they rolled their eyes in unison and firmly instructed him to take Dex to their favorite spot on the pond. When Nursey’s parents first visited Samwell for family weekend, he had had to spend one of the mornings in practice. Bored and stuck in a small Massachusetts town, his Mom and Mama had opted to walk the entire circumference of the pond. It took them three hours, and Mom nearly fell in at one point, but when they returned they knew all the most beautiful spots. For his date with Dex, they sent him a Google Maps pin of their favorite one so he wouldn’t get lost.

Nursey thinks he’s been to this spot before, but he follows Google, just in case. It takes them a little while to reach the far side of the pond, but the walk under the shady forest is like something out of Thoreau. He finds the purple house his parents mentioned and leads Dex up the little marked trail. The path is utterly lovely, with stands of white flowers and scatterings of buttercups, and the light is dappled green and gold through the trees. The air is still slightly damp here from the rain last night, and the ground around the path is covered in a thick layer of brown leaves, the leaves fallen over generations of autumns.

“If you’re taking me into the woods to murder me, this is a good spot, Derek. Very picturesque,” Dex quips behind him.

Nursey shoots him a scathing look. “Shut up, Billiam.”

They climb the little hill behind the purple house, and as they descend the far side Nursey thinks he can see the spot – it’s a bench built on a tiny clear patch of shoreline. He tugs Dex forward, and they nearly trip over the bench as they climb down the hill.

“Derek, you’re going to be the death—oh my God. Wow.”

From this spot, Nursey and Dex can see almost the whole pond, wreathed by thick pine woods, breaking only for the beach that opens onto the quad. The water is a dreamy periwinkle blue, and a soft breeze is rippling the surface into bands of sky blue and tree green and shadow dark.

Dex kisses his cheek and murmurs into his ear, lips brushing his skin, “This is amazing, Derek.”

They settle onto the bench, and Nursey unpacks the picnic basket, pulling the food out from where he and Bitty arranged it this morning and arraying it on the bench between them.

Dex opens the fabric napkin wrapped around his sandwich, “Shit, Nursey, this looks amazing. What is in this?”

“Prosciutto, arugula, balsamic, tomato, mozzarella, all on a baguette. It’s my favorite sandwich.”

Dex glances into the basket and laughs. “You pretentious fucker. You brought wine to a picnic?”

“It’s a _romantic_ picnic.”

“Did you bring a bottle opener?”

“Aha. I did, in fact, bring a bottle opener.” Nursey pulls out the bottle opener from the folds of the fabric and opens the wine. “See? I am so prepared. I am Mr. Prepared, Esquire.”

“Cool.” Dex looks into the basket again. “Um, Mr. Prepared, sir, did you bring cups?”

Nursey checks the basket. “Shit.”

They end up having to just pass the bottle between them as they eat their sandwiches.

“This is not quite the elegant meal I was imagining,” he says after taking a swig. He hands the bottle back to Dex.

Dex shrugs and takes a deep drink from the bottle. “Enh. Next time, babe. I believe in you.”

When they’re halfway through the wine and partway into the pie, Dex takes his hand. “Hey, Derek, I kind of got the feeling there was a special reason you wanted to have a romantic, fancy lunch in the woods.”

Nursey kisses his cheek. “You know me so well, my beautiful ginger boy.”

Dex is blushing. “Well, what was it?”

“Well,” Nursey starts, brushing his thumb against Dex’s wrist, “I realized about a week ago, we never talked about our soulmarks.”

Dex’s eyes go wide. “Fuck, you’re totally right.”

Nursey kisses his blush, from his nose to his cheeks to his ear. His skin is warm against Nursey’s lips. “So, I thought we should do it now.”

“Yeah. Yes. Totally,” Dex says, tripping over his words a little bit. “Who, um, should go first?”

Nursey kisses his nose. “I’ll go first.”

Dex sighs with relief. “Thank you.” He kisses Nursey’s cheek, and something inside Nursey wriggles with happiness.

“Alright, Poindexter, move. I need to sit between your legs.”

Dex blushes and throws his leg over the bench to make room for him. “This isn’t a movie, Nursey.”

“Honey, we’re in a romantic spot next to a pond drinking wine and eating pie. We’ve already gone all out. Might as well go all the way.” Nursey settles between Dex’s legs and pulls up the sleeve of his t-shirt so Dex can see them all from his vantage point over Nursey’s shoulder. “Can you read it from there?”

Dex nods. “Ayuh.”

“You know pretty much everybody here: Aisha showed up when I was six. Mama and Mom’s names appeared three months apart when I was eight. That was a pretty fraught three months. Have I told you about Auntie Chandra?” He points to Auntie Chandra’s name and looks up at Dex’s face. Dex shakes his head. “Okay, so she’s one of my parents’ oldest friends, and she helped found the Musjid in our house. And, like, she used to babysit us, and sometimes she used to babysit just me, and we’d go on adventures to, like, Staten Island and weird little shops in Queens. She’s the reason why I speak some Hindi.”

Dex hugs his waist and asks, “Will she be around for Eid?”

“Yeah, you’ll meet her. She’s, like, the best. I still call her sometimes when I’m having a bad day. My next one is Juan Carlos, from sophomore year of high school. It showed up when I was hugging him while he cried about getting an A minus on a physics test, that loser. Then Chowder, of course. Happened after I fell off the roof at a kegster.”

“That is not surprising at all; the universe saw you needed help,” Dex remarks darkly.

Nursey gives him a jokingly dirty look but keeps talking, “And Chamarie and I became soulmates while we were just hanging out and smoking a blunt after a poetry slam one day. And William Poindexter, well, that one is quite a story.”

Dex hums and kisses his neck. “Spare me. I remember it vividly.”

Nursey laughs. “Tell me yours.”

Dex pulls back his sleeve to the list of names on his forearm. Just below his elbow, in gorgeous, calligraphic script is Elizabeth Mary Kelly. Nursey touches her name lightly with the tip of his finger and he feels Dex shiver behind him. “Is that Ellie?”

“Nah. Grandma Beth. Ellie’s named after her. So’s Myra.”

“Grandma Beth was your first soulmate?” Nursey can’t even imagine being soulmates with his grandparents. They’ve always been so distant from him, separated by the years they spent being disappointed in their daughters for being lesbians.

Dex nods, his chin bumping into Nursey’s shoulder. “Yeah. When I was five, I told her I was in love with Mikey Hanafin, and she didn’t even blink an eye. She just gave me a kiss and let me talk about him as long as I wanted. And that’s when we became soulmates.”

Nursey kind of wants to cry. “Baby, that’s so beautiful.”

“She was my best friend for years. She lived near my elementary school, and I’d just hang out with her after school.”

“Is that when you started your Jeopardy habit?” Nursey doesn’t know why Dex is suddenly chatty, but he kind of wants it to go on forever.

Dex laughs fondly. “Yeah. She would watch Jeopardy while I did my homework. She taught me how to do my seven times tables to the Jeopardy song. She taught me how to skate, too. She had a pair of ancient skates in her closet from when one of my uncles was little, and she taught me to skate on the little pond behind her house.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Yeah.” Dex is quiet for a moment, then he squeezes Nursey’s waist again. “She’d be so excited I got a boyfriend.”

Nursey turns to kiss Dex’s cheek and just looks at him for a little bit. Dex is gazing out over the lake, and he looks a million miles away. Eventually, he shakes his head. “After Grandma Beth was Ellie and Myra. The both happened around when Grandma Beth died. It was a kind of rough time.” His voice shakes a little, and Nursey leans back into his chest. Dex sways him back forth in his arms and kisses him softly at the base of his neck. “Mom and I became soulmates after I came out to her, and, well, Chowder sort of became my soulmate a little bit after I talked his ear off about my whole thing with my dad and coming out.”

“Lots of coming out-centric soulmates, bro. It’s almost like being gay is, like, a really essential, tender part of your soul.”

“And my last soulmate is Derek Nurse, who’s a fucking asshole. I don’t really talk to him anymore. Don’t know why he’s still there.” Dex creeps his fingers under Nursey’s shirt and tickles his belly.

Nursey shrieks and tries to push his hands away, yelling as Dex tickles him more, “You dick! You’re such liar!”

Dex finally lets up and hugs his waist again, kissing the side of his neck. “You’re right. I actually love you. Now, tell me–” he squeezes Nursey’s hips between his legs, “–who wrote your name?”

Nursey looks at the familiar handwriting on Dex’s wrist spelling _Derek Malik Nurse_. “Mom wrote it. It was a tradition of black slave mothers to write down their children’s names the moment after they were born, before the master could know the baby was born, and my parents wanted to honor that tradition. My grandparents did it for Mom and her brothers.”

“I thought slaves weren’t allowed to write or read,” Dex asks, sounding confused.

“They used to memorize how to write individual names. A lot of people were named after people who were in the birthing room, or those people’s soulmates, because those names were already written on their bodies.” He remembers his Mom explaining this to him after he and Aisha became soulmates. It had not been the first time his parents talked to him about slavery, but it was the first time it felt personal and real to him.

“Did your Mom write your name just after you were born?”

“No, she had to wait until after the pain meds wore off, so she’d be able to write it.” Nursey laughs at the story while he’s telling it. He just can’t imagine his elegant mother so high on medication that she couldn’t write a name. “She tried to do it for Ishee, but she couldn’t even spell ‘Aisha,’ so they gave up and waited. Who wrote yours?”

“Grandma Beth wrote it. She wrote all our names. It’s an Irish Catholic thing—your mother or her mother writes it at your baptism.”

“I can’t believe I have Grandma Beth’s handwriting on my arm. I am blessed.”

“She was a great lady.”

“If your sisters were named after her, who were you named after?”

“Her husband Bill, actually. I didn’t know him too well because he died young, but I remember liking him as a kid. And my dad’s older brother James, who died in Vietnam. How about you?”

“Wait, have I never told you the story before?”

Dex shakes his head, and Nursey is honestly pretty surprised. When did he stop telling people about his father? “Malik was my grandfather on my Mom’s side. He was one of the early black Muslims, back in the sixties. And Derek was the name of my and Aisha’s sperm donor. He was a drag queen, and one of my parents’ best friends. I’ve seen his videos, and he was so funny.”

“What happened to him?”

“He didn't make it through the AIDS crisis.”

Dex squeezes him. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

For a while, they sit without speaking. Dex occasionally kisses his neck, and sometimes he turns to Dex’s cheek. The air is full of sound: the soft lapping of the pond against the shore, the brush of wind through the trees, the croaks and of chirrups of little creatures in the reeds. He can even hear the distant sounds of Wellies on the beach, carrying across the pond.

“Derek, baby?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too, Will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Slavery mention, death mention

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you have feelings that cannot be contained in an AO3 comment, please send them to me directly on [my tumblr](liminal-space-llc.tumblr.com) :) If you want to see more content from this world, it is collected on [this post ](https://liminal-space-llc.tumblr.com/post/179805915293/countdown-to-twosf).
> 
> Dictionary of Terms:
> 
>  **Arabic**  
>  Alhamdulillah – _Praise the Lord_  
>  Allahu Akbar – _“_ _God is great;” used to begin congregational prayer_  
>  As Salam Alaikum – _“Peace be on you;” A universal greeting among Muslims_  
>  Ayahs – _Verses of the Qur’an_  
>  Iftar – _The evening meals that break the daily fast during Ramadan_  
>  In shaa Allah – _If God wills_  
>  Jumu’ah – _Friday noon prayer (Islam)_  
>  Mashallah – _As God willed_  
>  Masjid – _“Mosque;” also a general term for places of worship in Islam_  
>  Mihrab – _A decorated niche in the wall to indicate the direction of Mecca, the qibla, so the congregation may pray toward Mecca_  
>  Qibla – _The direction of Mecca. Muslims perform prays in this direction_  
>  Qur’an – _The holy book of Islam, containing the word of God as dictated to Muhammad by the Archangel Gabriel_  
>  Salah – _Daily prayers, performed multiple times a day_  
>  Subhan Allah – _God is perfect_  
>  Wa Alaikum Assalam – _“And peace be upon you.” The response to As Salam Alaikum_  
>  Wudu – _Body purification ritual, done before prayers_  
>  Ya Allah – _Oh my God_
> 
> **Chinese**  
>  Waigong – _Grandpa (Maternal)_  
>  Waipo – _Grandma (Maternal)_


End file.
